It just didn’t make sense, any way you looked at it. It couldn’t be the sun that was causing it, because the sun was shining on the whole lake. And if it was a warm spring bubbling out of the ground, why hadn’t it been here those other days? I swam all around to see if I could find another one like it, but it didn’t happen anywhere else. But every time I’d come back, it was still there.
After a while I got out and put my clothes on and went up to the house to ask Uncle Sagamore and Pop about it. They might have some idea why there’d be one little warm spot in a cool lake. But they wasn’t there. It seemed to me like they had the funniest habit of just disappearing so you couldn’t find ’em anywhere. I looked all around and waited, but they never did come back, so I dug some worms and went fishing, figuring I could ask ’em that night at supper.
But that was the day the rabbit hunters came, and there was so much happened then I forgot all about it.
It was about an hour before sundown when I went up to the trailer to see if Miss Harrington was ready to go swimming.
Dr. Severance was lying in one of the chairs with a drink in his hand.
He looked at me and turned his head towards the door of the trailer, and says, ‘Hey, here’s Weismuller.’
Miss Harrington came out. She was wearing the candy-striped romper outfit again, and had her purse. ‘Hello, Billy,’ she says.
‘Kid, you really slay ’em,’ Dr. Severance says. ‘You must be a heavy spender. Or is it your breast stroke?’
‘Oh, shut up,’ Miss Harrington told him.
We started off through the trees, headed for the point up the lake. We’d gone maybe a couple of hundred yards and was walking along a trail where the bushes was pretty thick, with me going ahead and Miss Harrington coming behind because she was afraid of snakes, when all of a sudden I came around a bush and into a little open place, and there was a man in it.
He was just easing along real slow, looking all around through the trees, and when he saw me he jerked his head around and stared at me with his eyes real hard. He was wearing a Panama hat and a double-breasted suit, and he had a tommy gun in his hands, the kind they carry in comic books.
‘Hey, punk, where’d you come from?’ he asked.
‘From Uncle Sagamore’s,’ I says. ‘What you doing?’
‘Huntin’ rabbits,’ he says. ‘You seen any around?’
‘Not today,’ I says, but he wasn’t paying any attention. He had turned and was looking up the hill. I looked too, and that’s when I saw the other one. He was about fifty yards away, and was dressed just like this one, and he had a tommy gun too. He motioned with his arm, and jerked his head.
‘Shhh. I think he sees one,’ the first man said. He turned and slipped up that way, and they went out of sight into some more trees.
‘Don’t make any fuss,’ I says over my shoulder to Miss Harrington. ‘They’re going to sneak up on a rabbit.’
She didn’t say anything.
I looked around, and by golly she was gone. I didn’t see her anywhere. It was funny. She’d been there a minute ago, right behind me.
‘Hey, Miss Harrington,’ I says, sort of low so I wouldn’t scare the rabbit away.
She didn’t answer. She just wasn’t anywhere around. I knew she couldn’t have gone on ahead, because I was standing in the trail. So I figured she must have forgot something, maybe her bathing suit, and had gone back after it. So I started back, thinking I would meet her along the trail. But when I got clear back to the trailer I still hadn’t seen a sign of her. It sure was peculiar, I thought.
Dr. Severance was still lying in a canvas chair with his drink. He looked at me, and says, ‘Well, it’s the champ. Where’s Miss Harrington?’
‘That’s just it,’ I says. ‘I thought she came back here. I lost her on the trail.’
‘Lost her?’ he asked. ‘How?’
‘Well,’ I says, ‘I thought she was right behind me when I was talking to the rabbit hunter.’
He barked at me. ‘Rabbit hunter? Where? And what did he look like?’
‘Down the trail there,’ I says. ‘A couple of hundred yards. He was a big man with a scar on his face, and he was wearing a Panama hat and had a tommy gun.’
He came up out of the chair and threw the drink away from him all at one time, and his right hand shot inside his coat. I had to jump back real fast or he’d of run right over me. By the time I could turn around he was twenty yards down the trail.
I started to follow him, because I was still worried about what had become of Miss Harrington, but just then I saw Pop and Uncle Sagamore coming up towards the trailer.
‘Where’d he go in such a hurry?’ Pop asked.
I told them about Miss Harrington disappearing and about the rabbit hunters. They looked at each other.
‘Well sir, is that a fact?’ Uncle Sagamore says. ‘Two rabbit hunters with machine-guns. It’s sure lucky you got a month’s rent in advance, Sam.’
‘But we got to look for Miss Harrington,’ I says, or started to say when Pop motioned for me to be quiet.
It seemed like they was listening for something. They just stood real still and whenever I’d start to open my mouth one or the other would shake his head at me.
Then, all of a sudden, there was two shots down the trail, just two shots real close together and then it was all quiet again. Pop and Uncle Sagamore looked at each other, and started to walk slow down that way. I started to follow them, but Pop shook his head.
‘You’d better go back to the house,’ he says.
‘But Miss Harrington—’ I says. I felt like crying, I was so worried something had happened to her. Maybe she’d fell and hurt herself.
‘Never mind Miss Harrington,’ Pop says. ‘You go on to the house.’
They was crazy if they thought I was going back to the house when I didn’t know what had become of her. So the minute they was out of sight in the trees I cut downhill and started running through the brush just below the trail. In a minute I was ahead of them. I turned to the left and got back on the trail and went running along to the place where I’d seen her last. But before I got there I happened to look uphill, and there she was, standing in a little open place in the trees. Dr. Severance was with her. He was looking down at something on the ground.
I was relieved to see she was all right. I cut off the trail and ran up that way. But just before I got there he waved his hand at her and I heard him say, ‘Go on back to the trailer. I’ll take care of these yokels.’
She left and started walking away through the trees, and I turned and was going to run over that way to her but just then I saw Pop and Uncle Sagamore coming. If they saw me here Pop would give me a tanning for sure for not minding him. I looked around real fast, trying to see if I could get away by running in the other direction and then circling back, but there wasn’t much chance. There was some thick bushes just to one side of where Dr. Severance was, though, so I dived into them and hid.
Now that I knew she was all right I wasn’t worried any more, so I began to be curious about what Dr. Severance was doing. I parted the leaves a little where I was lying, and I could see him. He was only about ten feet away, still looking down at something lying at his feet.
There was a log in the way so I couldn’t make out what it was at first, but then I saw a pair of legs in grey pants sticking out a little beyond the end of it, with the toes of the shoes pointing up in the air, and I realized what it was. It was one of those rabbit hunters. Then I saw the butt of the tommy gun, lying on the ground next to him.
And just then Dr. Severance walked over a little to his right and looked down at something else, that was behind a bush. I stared over that way, and doggone if there wasn’t another pair of legs sticking out from behind it too. And another tommy gun. It was the other rabbit hunter.
It sure looked like there’d been a bad accident.
8
JUST THEN POP AND UNCLE Sagamore walked up.
Dr. Severance turned around and sa
w them. He took out his handkerchief and mopped his face, and shook his head kind of slow, like it was all too much for him. He sat down on the log where the first rabbit hunter was and let out a long, shaky breath.
‘Gentlemen,’ he says, ‘it was awful. Just simply awful.’
‘What happened?’ Pop asked.
Dr. Severance mopped his face with the handkerchief again and pointed at the rabbit hunters one at a time, with his face turned away like he didn’t want to look at them. ‘Dead,’ he says, real sad. ‘They’re both dead. And all on account of one crummy little rabbit.’
‘Well sir, that’s a shame,’ Uncle Sagamore says. ‘Just how did it happen?’
‘Well,’ Dr. Severance says, taking a deep breath and beginning to get a-hold of hisself a little, ‘I was standing down there by the trail when I saw these two men walking by up here looking for rabbits. I was just about to call out and ask ’em if they’d had any luck, when all of a sudden this little brown rabbit popped out of a bush right between ’em, It started to run off, but then for some reason it changed its mind and doubled back, right square between the two of ‘em just as they both raised their guns and shot. It was the most terrible thing I ever saw in my life. They just killed each other deader than hell.’
Uncle Sagamore bent down and looked at the first rabbit hunter. He walked over to the other one and rolled him over a little and looked at him too. Then he came back and hunkered down and took out his plug of tobacco. He wiped it on the leg of his overalls, and bit off a big chew, and shook his head.
‘Yes sir, by golly,’ he says, ‘it sure must of been a heart-rendin’ thing to see. Pore fellers just shot each other right in the back.’
Dr. Severance nodded. ‘That’s right. That was what made it so terrible. You felt so sorry for ’em, because they knew it was coming and there wasn’t a thing in the world they could do about it. They both saw what they’d done by the time they pulled the triggers. They turned around and tried to duck, but it was too late.’
Uncle Sagamore sailed out some tobacco juice and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Well sir,’ he says, ‘that there’s the tragic thing about all these city fellers wanderin’ around in the woods a-huntin’. They’re helpless. They’re dangerous to theirselves, and that’s a fact, because they don’t know how to handle guns.’
He stopped and looked at Dr. Severance, and then he says, ‘But don’t get me wrong. I don’t mean they’re all like that. Once in a while you run across one that’s just hell on wheels with a gun, and I wouldn’t want you to think I was lumpin’ all city fellers together that way. No offence, mind you.’
‘No,’ Dr. Severance says. ‘No. Of course not.’
‘But that ain’t neither here nor there,’ Uncle Sagamore went on. ‘I reckon what we got to do now is notify the shurf and explain to him how these pore fellers killed theirselves, and ask him to haul ’em away, it bein’ warm weather and all.’
Dr. Severance nodded. ‘Sure. I guess that’s the least we can do.’
Then all of a sudden he stopped and rubbed his chin with his hand, his face screwed up kind of thoughtful. ‘Hmmmmm,’ he says. ‘Gentlemen, I just remembered something.’
He reached back and got his wallet out of his hip pocket and held it in his lap while he started taking stuff out of it like he was looking for something. I watched him through the leaves, trying to figure out what he was doing. He slid out a thick bundle of money that would of choked a horse, and just dropped it across his legs as careless as if it’d been a bunch of old socks, while he went on poking around in the wallet.
Pop and Uncle Sagamore looked at all the bills.
‘What is it you’re looking for?’ Pop asked.
‘Oh,’ Dr. Severance says. ‘Why, my copy of the game laws.’ He held the empty wallet up, spreading it open so he could look inside. ‘I could have sworn I had it with me, but I must have left it in my other suit.’
‘The game laws?’ Uncle Sagamore asked.
‘That’s right,’ Dr Severance says, putting the stuff back in the wallet, the money last. He had to shuffle it around a little to get it all packed in. ‘However, it don’t matter that I haven’t got it with me. I remember the laws perfectly, because I just looked at them yesterday. And, gentlemen, do you know what?’
‘What’s that?’ Uncle Sagamore asked.
‘Mind you,’ Dr. Severance says, ‘I wouldn’t say this if I didn’t know I was right. But the rabbit season closed two weeks ago.’
‘No!’ Uncle Sagamore says, his mouth falling open. ‘Is that a fact?’ He thought for a minute, and then he clapped his hands together, and says, ‘Yes, by hell, I believe you’re right. I recollect now, I looked it up just the other day myself.’
‘Why,’ Pop says, looking at the two rabbit hunters, ‘they ought to of been ashamed of theirselves, a-huntin’ rabbits out of season that way. They’re no better than common criminals.’
‘It’s people like that,’ Uncle Sagamore says, ‘that destroy the natural resources of a country. It’s just disheartenin’, that’s what it is. Out here, sneakin’ around and breakin’ the laws behind people’s backs.’
Dr. Severance nodded. ‘That’s right. And as for me, I wouldn’t hardly have the guts to go bothering a poor overworked sheriff with ’em, He’s got enough on his mind now, protecting the citizens, and looking for live criminals.’
‘Why, sure,’ Uncle Sagamore says. ‘That’s what makes taxes so damn high now, everybody unloadin’ his troubles on the gov’ment and runnin’ to the shurf with every two-bit thing that comes up. People just ain’t got no consideration.’
‘Now, that’s it, exactly,’ Dr. Severance says. ‘You’ve put your finger right on it. What if we are taxpayers? Why should we start throwing our weight around, and raise a big stink and demand that the sheriff drop everything he’s doing just to come running out here because a couple of criminals has had an accident while they was deliberately trying to kill a poor rabbit out of season? Especially after I caught ’em right in the act. It makes me real happy to know I’ve met up with a couple of public-spirited men that see it the same way I do.’
Uncle Sagamore spat again and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Well sir,’ he says, ‘it’s real nice of you to say that. Now, just what did you have in mind?’
‘Why,’ Dr. Severance says, ‘I was thinking, since there’s plenty of vacant land back in here in the trees, why don’t we just give ’em a private burial and forget the whole shameful thing?’
Uncle Sagamore nodded. ‘Why, that’s a fine idea. Don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.’ Then he stopped and thought about it again, and looked kind of doubtful. ‘Of course,’ he went on, ‘a thing like that might run into quite a little work, what with the diggin’ and all, and I just don’t rightly see how me and Sam could spare the time away from the crop, workin’ practically night and day like we are.’
‘Oh, I’d be glad to bear the expense of it,’ Dr. Severance says. ‘I feel kind of responsible, since I was the one discovered ’em, What do you say to maybe a hundred dollars?’
‘Fine,’ Uncle Sagamore says. ‘Fine.’
But then he stopped, like he’d just thought of something and his face looked sad. He shook his head. ‘Well sir,’ he went on, ‘it’s a shame. A downright shame. I thought there for a minute we had the answer, but we just can’t do it.’
‘Can’t? Why not?’ Dr. Severance asked.
‘Well, it’s kind of a personal matter,’ Uncle Sagamore says, like he didn’t want to talk about it. ‘But you see, this here land’s been in my family quite a spell. Matter of fact, my pappy and grandpappy’s both buried on it. And I—well, I know it may sound kind of silly, but to be truthful I’m afraid it might get to weighin’ on my mind later on, thinkin’ of them being buried in the same ground with a couple of low-down men that’d do a thing like shootin’ a rabbit out of season.’
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Dr. Severance says. ‘It sure might, at that.’ T
hen his face brightened up. ‘But say, just for the sake of argument, that it did start bothering your conscience later on. What do you figure it would cost to have your folks moved to a regular cemetery?’
‘Why,’ Uncle Sagamore says, ‘I expect about five hundred dollars.’
‘Well, that sounds like a reasonable figure,’ Dr. Severance says. He counted some bills out of his wallet and handed them to Uncle Sagamore. ‘Six hundred altogether.’
He sure carried a lot of money around with him. It didn’t hardly make a dent on what was in the wallet. I could see that even from where I was. Pop and Uncle Sagamore looked at what was left, and then at each other.
‘Well, I reckon that takes care of everything,’ Uncle Sagamore says. He started to get up. Then he stopped all of a sudden, looking kind of thoughtful, and hunkered down again. ‘Well sir, by golly,’ he says, ‘do you know what we plumb forgot?’
Dr. Severance looked at him real sharp. ‘Now what?’
‘The sermon,’ Uncle Sagamore says. ‘Ain’t no man deserves to be buried without preachin’, no matter what he done. We just naturally couldn’t send these two sinners to their last restin’ place without a minister. Couldn’t even think of it.’
‘Minister?’ Dr. Severance says. ‘How the hell are we going to have a minister at a private funeral like this?’
‘Well sir,’ Uncle Sagamore says. ‘It’s easy. Seems like the luck is right with us all the way. It just happens my brother Sam here is a ordained minister of the gospel, and I know we could get him to say a few words.’
‘Hmmmm,’ Dr. Severance says. ‘That is a piece of luck, ain’t it? And how much does his fee run?’
‘Well,’ Uncle Sagamore says, ‘as a usual thing, a hundred dollars a head.’
‘That sounds like a nice round figure,’ Dr. Severance says, reaching for his wallet again.
‘However, in this case,’ Uncle Sagamore went on, ‘seein’ as how these men died with all that sin on ’em, right in the committin’ of a crime, so to speak, Brother Sam might have to throw in a few extra flourishes to get ’em over the hump. Still and all, though, I reckon that two hundred dollars a head ought to just about cover it.’