Chapter VIII
It was not quite dark, but the stars were beginning to come out, and lights in the houses beside the road blinked in the late twilight. When they were half a mile from home, they could see moving lights that looked as if lanterns were being carried by moving men.
There was a stir and a hum about the place that showed that something was going on. Darling Jill speeded up the car to find out what it was. She slowed down at the turn, burning the brake bands until the odor of rubber enveloped them in the dust.
Ty Ty came running around the house holding out a smoking lantern in front of him. His face was red with the day’s heat, and his clothes were caked with dried clay that clung to the cloth like beggar-lice. They all jumped out to meet him.
“What’s the matter, Pa?” Rosamond asked him excitedly.
“Great guns,” he said, “we’re digging like all get-out. We’ve sunk a hole twenty feet since this morning, and I don’t mean maybe, either. We’ve been doing the fastest digging in ten years.”
He pulled at them, urging them to follow him. He broke into a run, leading them across the yard and around the corner of the house. Stopping abruptly, they found themselves balanced on the rim of a lantern-lit crater at the side of the house. Down on the floor of it, Shaw and Buck and Black Sam were digging into the clay. On the other side of the crater, opposite them, was Uncle Felix with another smoking lantern and a shot gun. There was another man beside him, looking like a ghost in the flickering light.
“Who’s that over there?” Will asked.
Ty Ty shouted down at Buck and Shaw. Griselda came suddenly into view, emerging from somewhere in the darkness.
“Boys,” Ty Ty shouted, “we’ve been working since early this morning, and I reckon we’d better stop and rest some. Will’s here now, and we’ll all start in again tomorrow morning bright and early. Come on up and see the folks.”
Buck threw down his shovel, but Shaw kept on picking away at the hard clay. Buck began arguing with him, trying to get him to stop for the night and rest. Black Sam was already climbing out of the hole.
Griselda and Darling Jill went into the house and lit the lamps.
“I’m hungry as all get-out, girls,” Ty Ty said.
Uncle Felix picked up the smoking lantern at his feet, poking the other man with the end of the shotgun. He urged the strange man around the house towards the barn.
“Who’s that?” Pluto asked. “Is he a voter?”
“That? Why, that’s the all-white man you put me on the track of, Pluto. Great guns, Pluto, that’s that albino we roped in the swamps.”
They walked around the house behind the man and Uncle Felix. The colored man was urging him forward, talking to him while he poked with the end of the gun.
“I didn’t tell you no lie about him, did I?” Pluto asked. “I said he was down there in the swamp, didn’t I, Ty Ty?”
“You didn’t tell no lie about him being there, but you sure overestimated the trouble he might cause. Why, that all-white man was no more trouble to bring home than a dead rabbit. He came along just as peaceful, Pluto. But I ain’t taking no chances with him. He might be playing possum. That’s why I keep Uncle Felix guard over him day and night.”
“Did he divine for you, Ty Ty?”
“Just like four and four make eight,” Ty Ty said. “When we got him here and told him what he was to do, why the first thing he did was to point out that spot where the new hole is now. He said that was the place to dig for the lode. And that’s where it is.”
“How do you know it is? Did you find any nuggets?”
“Well, not exactly. But we’re getting warmer every minute.”
“Can he talk?” Will asked.
“Talk? Well, I reckon he can, and then some. Why, that all-white man will talk your arm off if you give him half a showing. He can argue like nobody’s business. My jaws are so tired now that they’re almost locked down from talking with him. I ain’t scared of him no longer, either. He’s just like me and you and everybody else, Will, only he’s all-white, including his hair and eyes. True, his eyes are a little pinkish, but even that passes for white when the light ain’t so good.”
“Did you mention to him that I am running for sheriff?” Pluto asked.
“Now, Pluto,” Ty Ty said, “I ain’t got no time letting him off to cast a vote. He’s going to stay right where he is, day and night. We’re going to dig gold out of that hole, even if we have to go clear down to China to raise it. But we’re getting warm now. It ain’t going to be long before we strike that lode and start shoveling out those yellow guinea eggs.”
Ty Ty stopped at the barn gate.
“I’m awfully hungry now,” he said. “Let’s go back to the house and hurry up the girls cooking something to eat, and after supper we can bring him up to the house and let everybody take a good look and see what an albino looks like at close range.”
Ty Ty turned and started back to the house. Will and Pluto followed behind. They had wished to see the man in the barn right away, but neither of them was anxious to go there unless Ty Ty was with them.
“You ought not to have let him set you digging right beside the house,” Will said. “That was the wrong thing to do, it looks like to me. The house might tumble right down into the hole.”
“I’ve seen to that,” Ty Ty said. “Me and the boys and Black Sam brace it up as we go along. We’ve got it propped so it can’t fall in the hole. It don’t matter so much if it does, though; when we strike the lode, we’ll be rich enough to build any number of fine houses, lots finer than that one is.”
“I don’t know so much about that part,” Pluto said, “but it does look like you’re digging on God’s little acre.”
“Well, that won’t worry you long,” Ty Ty said. “I shifted God’s little acre clear over to the back side of the farm this morning. There ain’t no danger of us striking the lode on it for yet a while to come. God’s little acre is as safe over there as it would be down in Florida.”
Ty Ty and Will went into the house, but Pluto sat down on the porch where it was cooler.
Griselda and Rosamond were cooking supper, and Darling Jill was setting the table. Black Sam had brought in an armful of fat pine knots, and the cook-stove was red hot on top. Everybody was hungry, but it would not take long to boil the grits and make the sweet potatoes with the heat Black Sam had provided. Griselda had sliced half a ham and it was frying on two griddles.
Everyone forgot about Pluto. Just as Will and Ty Ty were getting up from the table, Darling Jill remembered that he had not had supper, and she ran to find him. She brought him into the dining-room protesting that he did not have time to stay. He kept on saying that he had to get out on the road and canvass the voters before bed-time that night.
“Now, Pluto,” Ty Ty said, “you just sit and eat. When you finish, we’re going to bring that all-white man up here from the barn and let everybody get a good look at him in the light. He has to come to eat just like the rest of us, and he can eat here just as well as he can in the barn. That’ll give Uncle Felix a breathing spell, because he’s been guarding him ever since we brought him back last night.”
Buck and Shaw got ready to drive to Marion for some new shovels. Since beginning anew, they had broken one shovel handle, and one blade had bent. Ty Ty wished to get a new shovel for Will, and he himself thought he could dig better with a new one. Buck and Shaw washed and changed their clothes and got ready to leave.
Ty Ty took Will and Pluto into the living-room while the girls were clearing the table and stacking the dishes in the kitchen for Black Sam to wash. He was eager to tell them how the albino had been captured.
“Buck saw him first,” Ty Ty began. “He’s right proud of it, and I don’t blame him none, either. We were down in that swamp below Marion waiting for the first sight of him when Buck said he thought he’d go up to a house just off the road and inquire about an all-white man. We drove up there in the car and stopped in the yard, and Buck got out
and rapped on the porch. I was looking the other way at the time, thinking maybe I might see some signs of the albino in the distance, and I don’t know what Shaw was doing. But Shaw wasn’t looking the same way Buck was, because before I knew it I heard Buck yell, ‘Here he is!’“
“Was he in the house, there?” Pluto asked.
“Was he?” Ty Ty said. “Well, I reckon he was. When I turned around, there he was, big as life, standing in the door looking like a man who’s just been ducked in a flour barrel. He was wearing overalls and a blue work shirt, but he was white everywhere else I could see.”
“Did he run?”
“Run nothing! He came out on the porch and asked Buck what we was after. Buck grabbed him around the legs, and Shaw and me jumped out on the ground with the plow-lines. We had him tied up in no time, just like you rope a calf to take to market. He yelled some, and kicked a great deal, but that didn’t cut no ice with the boys and me. Then pretty soon a woman came to the door to see what all the fuss was about. She was like all women, and I mean by that, she wasn’t allwhite like the albino was. She said to me, ‘What on earth are you folks doing?’ And she said to the albino, ‘What’s the matter, Dave?’ He didn’t say anything for a while, and that’s how we came to know what his name was. It’s Dave. Directly he said, ‘These sons-of-bitches have got me all roped up.’ Then she started yelling and ran through the house and out the back door into the swamp, and that’s the last I saw or heard of her. She was his wife, I reckon, but I can’t see what an albino has got business of marrying for. It’s a good thing we brought him away. I hate to see a white woman taking up with a coalblack darky, and this was just about as bad, because he is an all-white man.”
“Now that you’ve got him, what can he do?” Will said.
“Do? Why, locate the lode for us, Will.”
“That’s not scientific, like you’ve always talked about being,” Will said. “Now, tell the honest-to-God truth. Is it?”
“I reckon it is, if I know what I’m doing. Some folks say a well-diviner ain’t a scientific man, but I maintain he is. And I stick up the same way for a gold-diviner.”
“There’s nothing scientific about breaking off a willow branch and walking over the ground with it looking for a stream of water underground. It’s hit or miss. I’ve heard them say, ‘Dig here,’ and when the shaft had been sunk a couple of hundred feet, there wasn’t a drop of water on the drill. You might just as well roll high-dice for water as to walk over the ground with a willow branch. Sure, a willow branch will dip sometimes, and other times it will rise up, too. If I was going to sink a well, I wouldn’t try to divine water with a piece of willow limb. I’d roll high-dice for it before I’d make a fool out of myself doing that.”
“You just haven’t got a scientific mind, Will,” Ty Ty said sadly. “That’s the whole trouble with your talk. Now, take me. I’m scientific clear through to the marrow, and I’ve always been, and I reckon I’ll be to the end. I don’t laugh and poke fun at scientific notions like you do.”
After the hearty supper of grits and sweet potatoes, hot biscuits and fried ham, both Ty Ty and Will were feeling good. Pluto had eaten as much, if not more than anyone in the house, but he was restless. He knew he ought to leave and go home so he could get up at break of day the next morning and make an early start campaigning. He was beginning to worry about the outcome of the election. If he were not elected sheriff, he did not know what he was going to do. He did not have a job, and the colored share-cropper who worked his sixty-acre farm could not make enough cotton to provide him with a living. He might be able to peddle something, if he could find some novelty that people would buy. He had been selling first one thing and then another for eight or ten years, but he had never been able to make much more than expense money for his car out of it. For one thing, he was never able to get around much. When he remained in town, he liked to sit in the big chair in the pool room and call shots, and to talk about politics. He knew he should not spend so much of his time in the pool room, but he just could not get out in the hot sun day after day trying to sell laundry bluing or furniture polish that people did not wish to buy, or if they did, not have enough money to pay for. But if he were elected sheriff, that would be another matter. He would draw a good salary, with fees in addition, and the deputies could go out and serve all the papers and make all the arrests. He could still sit in the pool room most of the time and call shots across the table.
“I reckon I’d better be going home, now,” he said.
He made no effort to rise from the chair, and no one paid any attention to him.
Darling Jill came in with Griselda and Rosamond and patted Pluto’s bald head. She would not come in front of him where he could put his hands on her, and he was forced to submit to her play while he hoped she would soon consent to sit on his lap.
“When are you going to bring that albino up here so we can see him?” Will asked.
“Stay calm and hold your horses a little longer,” Ty Ty told him. “Black Sam has got to finish washing the dishes first, and then I’ll send him down to the barn for him. Uncle Felix can eat his supper while everybody is looking at the all-white man in here.”
“I’m just crazy to see him,” Darling Jill said, playing with Pluto’s head.
“I’ve got to be going home,” Pluto said. “And that’s a fact.”
Pluto’s statement was completely ignored.
“I’d like to see him, too,” Rosamond said, looking at Griselda. “What does he look like?”
“He’s big and strong. And good-looking too.”
“Aw, hell,” Will said, making a face, “ain’t that just like a woman?”
“I don’t aim to have no fooling around with him,” Ty Ty told them. “You girls can just walk off and call crows, if that’s what you’ve got on your minds. He’s got to keep on the job for me all the time.”
Darling Jill sat down on Pluto’s lap. He was surprised, and pleased. He beamed with pleasure when she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.
“Why don’t you and Pluto get married?” Ty Ty asked.
“I’m willing, day or night,” Pluto said eagerly.
“I declare, it sure would be a big load off my mind if you would.”
“I’m willing, day or night,” Pluto repeated. “And that’s a fact.”
“You’re willing for what?” Darling Jill asked.
“To get married anytime you say so.”
“To me? Marry me?”
“You bet your boots,” he said, jerking his head at her. “I’m crazy about you, Darling Jill, and I can’t keep on waiting for it to happen. I want to get married right away.”
“When you swallow that belly, I might think about it.” She began pounding it with her fists, hitting him without mercy. “But I wouldn’t marry you now, you horse’s ass.”
Not even Pluto spoke after that. There was not a word spoken for nearly a minute. Then Griselda got up and tried to make Darling Jill leave Pluto alone.
“Hush, Darling Jill,” Griselda said; “don’t talk like that. It isn’t nice.”
“Well, he is an old horse’s ass, isn’t he? What would you call him? A doll-baby? He looks like a horse’s ass to me.”
Ty Ty got up and went out of the room. Everyone supposed he was going down to the barn and bring back the albino. The others in the room sat still and tried not to look at Pluto. Pluto sat glumly alone, hurt by Darling Jill’s treatment of him, but all the more eager to marry her.
Chapter IX
There was a stamping of heavy-shod feet on the front porch. Ty Ty’s voice could be heard above the sound, however; he was telling Uncle Felix to take Dave into the house and show him off.
“Just shove him in,” Ty Ty said. “The folks in there are waiting to get a look at him.”
The albino was the first to appear in the door; Uncle Felix was behind him, shotgun leveled against his back, and looking scared to death. He was glad to be relieved of his responsibility, if only tempora
rily, when Ty Ty told him to go to the kitchen and eat his supper.
“Well, folks, here he is,” Ty Ty said proudly. He laid the shotgun across the chair seat and led Dave into the room. “Take a seat and make yourself at home.”
“What’s your name, fellow?” Will asked him, partly dazzled by the whiteness of his skin and hair.
“Dave.”
“Dave how-many?”
“Dave Dawson.”
“Can you divine a lode of gold?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never tried it before.”
“Well, then,” Will said, “you’d better begin praying about it, because if you can’t, all these folks are going to be pretty mad at you and I don’t know what might be liable to happen to you.”
“Sure, he can do it,” Ty Ty broke in. “He can do it and don’t know it.”
“I want to see the gold you divine, fellow,” Will told him. “I want to feel it in my hand, and bite it.”
“Now, don’t get him all shy and scared, Will. When he grows up, he’s going to be some almighty gold-diviner. He’s young yet. Just give him time.”
Darling Jill and Rosamond had been looking at the strange man without taking their eyes from him. Rosamond was a little afraid of him, and she drew back in her chair involuntarily. Darling Jill, though, leaned forward and gazed steadily into his eyes. He felt her staring at him and he looked at her. Dave bit his lip, wondering who she was. He had never seen a girl he thought so beautiful before, and he was trembling a little.
With their eyes upon him, Dave felt like an animal on exhibition. All of them were looking at him, and he could only look at one person at a time. His eyes went around the room, returning to Darling Jill. The more he saw her, the more he liked her. He wondered if she were the wife of one of the men in the room.