"Oh, since the last feller routed me out."

"You mean they's others know bout ye?"

"Awww sure, Dobber, but that'uz years gone by, long afore you was borned."

"Daaawg--"

"Course that last'n, he weren't too swift--not as bright as you," the lips moved eerily in the grimy moonface, the eyes were like green marbles and grit coated the skin. "He never would heed my warnings, sorry chap."

"Whoo-whoo-whoooo was he?"

"Don't matter now, you don't know him. Afore yer time."

"Daaaawg---" was all Dob could muster as the marble eyes blinked up at him. He began to back away.

"Whoooa there speed, where ye goin--?"

"Lordy G.o.d Jehover--" Dob was beginning to think this critter in the hole must be some sort of earthly demon, left here by old Clootie himself; he might just be looking at a true seed of Satan.

"Come'on back hyere Dobber boy--"

"They gonna hang me good," Dob was s...o...b..ring, "That there drummer'll tell and Dobber'll be dust to dust, just like you--"

"That's a good'n. Har-dee-harharhar. Ye skeered that drummer somethin fierce, boy. Right now he's a-toodlin back down to his car--be there jist afore church bells and C.Y.F. is done, and--shoooo--that drummer is gonna hightail outa these parts. Nope. Won't catch him round hyere fer a c.o.o.n's age."

Dob kept backing off. "S-so you say--"

"Spit in d'well--Dobby, I knows. I knows these things. Git it? Now come'on over'chere--"

But Dob cut away, fast. High time to cut and run, so he ran--praying a mile a minute as his clubfeet shot down that wooded ravine with his heifer plodding behind him.

"Don't be skeered! They's plenty of us buried hither and yon!" he heard the hole hollering as he went.

That drummer must have gotten good and lost. Dob actually outran him back to Cayuga Ridge. Dob had wasted no time and was soon skulking around the back stoop of the Church, lungs afire when Fritzy came limping furiously off Pearlwick Road. Fritzy looked torn up and snake bit. From where he crouched, Dob saw Valjean Shea stroll out of the Livery in leather ap.r.o.n with a ten-pound hammer in her hand and she said something to Fritzy, but the drummer just ignored her, picking up his pace as he made a beeline for his Pontiac outside w.i.l.l.y Birdwell's Mercantile Feed, Fuel & Grain. Without a by your-leave, he hopped in, cranked the Pontiac and sped north out of Cayuga Ridge, headed for the company of downlanders no doubt. Dob could not believe it. He must of been in G.o.d's grace; reprieved from a murderer's fate while winning the powers of Master Loki in one sweep of His Hand. Nonetheless, when a stern Preacher Polk came out the vestry door and asked Dob what in judas he was up to, Dob lit out across the schoolyard without reply. It didn't do to press his dumb luck. He dodged the teeter-totters and merry-go-round, hoping to beat it home before sundown.

He should have known. You can't dodge the laws of sun and moon. Just after nightfall, it was, when Dob finally slipped up to their shack in Coffin Holler with magic bag and heifer in tow. He'd stopped only long enough to pull his bag from the gooseberry bush.

Through the window he saw Toodlem, inside, trying to stand on her head in the corner. She was in the company of two tabby cats and a bluetick pup. In the firelight, Dob could see that her floursack dress kept slipping down over Toodlem's pudgy knees and everytime she'd grab for her modesty she'd fall back down and have to start over. All to protect the innocence of a bluetick pup. His Nonny would have had another stroke.

Dob hid his bag in the woodpile out back, then fed the heifer. Before he went inside Dob couldn't help noticing for the hundred zillionth time that Toodlem had been out pinning her dolls to the clothesline. Whether strawheaded or stuffed with cotton, they all looked dripping wet to him, like she'd been giving them baths again. Dob tripped up the step then opened his back door real slow. She didn't hear him at first, still struggling, holding her breath as she perched on her head--until she heard the hinge squeak, that is and collapsed in a loud bellyflop which sent cats and pup scrambling.

"Where been Dop?"

"Been a-huntin squirrel."

"Why Dopper don't takee no gun?" Toodlem asked one of the cats.

"Ain't gotta gun, you know that. Whar's supper?"

"Don't know. Takee th'train ter Memphis, I s'pose," she told the pup cowering under a rocker.

"Where'd ye git the pup Toodlem?

"Papper give me the runt and good riddance..."

It was her Pap, Lawson K. Leapfeather, who owned the shack they lived in. He allowed it would be best to keep his special daughter close so he and Mrs. Leapfeather could keep an eye on her, especially once she dropped the kid and it became evident that Toodlem couldn't care for it and Mrs. Leapfeather took over. Special demands. That's what Nursy Jane said. Baby Lawson had special demands. Her Pap didn't think much of Dob, particularly after this turn of events, but he put them in the old squatter's shack which sat up the draw from his place. The Leapfeather Clan had first taken root in that rinky d.i.n.k shack and now it seemed justifiable that their last contribution to southern womanhood be kept safely inside it, doing headstands. Dob picked up jobs here and there from folks who needed a bear skinned or a toolshed painted. Sometimes he helped Black Elam shovel fertilizer from the Livery whenever the n.i.g.g.e.r needed a hand, but mostly Dob ground peas for Toodlem's Pap who kept them in groceries if you called baloney and sc.r.a.pple groceries and he never paid Dob a plug nickel. Right now, it looked like Mr. Leapfeather's bluetick had had her litter.

"Dop?"

"Huh?"

"How many sqwulls Dop git?"

"Didn't git nuffin. Ain't got no shooter I tole ye. Lord will provide Toodlem."

"That's riiight, Lord provide baloney n'conebread."

"That's right. Hey Toodlem?"

"Whud Dop?"

"You got no rose toilet water on ye?"

Toodlem sniffed at herself, soon she was joined in the sniffing by the spraddle-legged pup. The cats kept their distance. "Mmmmm, smell likee dog dang dirt n'onions ter me Dop."

Dob had to admit, Toodlem had never smelled like much, especially not rosewater.

"You git anythang fum a drummer while back?"

She stared up at him, her banjo-eyes glazing, her chopped black hair sticking every whichaway. After a spell, Dob saw she was somewhere gone again. Toodlem would leave and go far away from time to time, even when she was sitting across the table from you. He tried the question once more but her eyes stayed funny and she didn't seem to hear so Dob rustled up some grey baloney.

Later that night, after Toodlem was asleep, Dob sneaked out to the woodpile and got the magic bag. Sitting on the back step by guttering candlewick, he took out Master Loki's kit and piffled with the tricks inside. It wasn't long before Dob figured he had made a mistake. He tried to sort out the big words in the Wizard Manual, but to little effect; they were powerful big words. Thinking maybe he could decipher the secrets of each illusion without the manual proved fruitless, the egg wouldn't evaporate and all the spots fell off the domino. The Magic Snuff Box just looked like an empty snuff box to him. He sorted through some other clap-trap inside the kit, some silver rings, fancy scarves and whatnot and before long Dob lost heart. The powers would never be his, those Boyetts and Van Smittles were right. Dobber Magee would never be a Wizard for G.o.d Almighty. He was doomed to be a bear-skinner and stump-thumper for the rest of his natural life.Bewildered, he looked out into the bristling pines of Coffin Holler, listening with gloom to a couple of bickering thrushes up near the full moon. A dog was barking down the holler, but it wasn't Pap Leapfeather's bluetick--Dob knew its yap. No, most likely it was one of the Shea Clan's hounds that was baying at that sorry, sorry moon. His wandering eye looked up at it and the face of that demon in the hole returned to him.

He was mortified. Mortified that something so rare and peculiar could have been forgotten by him so easily. A chill overtook him. The face had been right. The drummer did not round up a lynch mob. The drummer did hop in his buggy and go. Who would have believed such a thing? Yet here sat Dob with the plunder of his crime and no k.n.o.b-boggling powers to show for it. Where was the finger of G.o.d in this, dog-dang it? It all came to doodley-squat. Unless, of course, that wasn't a demon at all, down in that hole. Unless the face was really the face of an angel. Or at the very least, he thought, remembering the grime on the marble-eyed face, if it wasn't an angel it might be a very dirty saint which G.o.d had led him to, who might just be waiting there to grant him wishes or point the way to Wizardry. It was something to think about.

The next morning, Dob took some licorice and copper b.u.t.tons from the magic bag, then threw it in the trash fire. He left Toodlem busting pecan sh.e.l.ls with a brick and hotfooted down the holler, into the backcountry to the hole. It was right where he left it.

"Sooo, I see ye finally finished yer oats and come to yer senses," the face said upon seeing him.

"Ye still here?"

"I'm always here. Where would I go?"

"Daaawg--thought mebbe a c.o.o.n might a-took ye fer a grub and et yer nose off er covered ye up er somethin..."

"Naw. Were a fitful night though," the lips rasped at the bottom of the hole. "In the wee hours Bob Nottinham, yay, Bob Nottinham come by, down that path yonder a-carryin somethin er somebody, but he paid me no never mind."

Dob's eyes were wide, his mind askew. He had to get some things sorted out.

"I--I reckon I got to ast ye a thang er two--"

"Shoot."

"Er ye a dirty demon or a dirty saint?"

"Hmmm. Have to work on that one fer awhile. I'll git back to ye."

"Ye got ye a name ter go by?"

"Sure--sure I does, but I doubt ye could pernounce it. Don't fancy it much no how. Too many names to go'round anyways."

Dob wasn't too sure what that meant. He plunged onward.

"Well, how ye come to be hyere? Was ye a livin human oncet?"

"Nope. Never was. Never keered to be. You folks er always a-runnin yerself ragged over little o'nothin."

"But--"

"I'm evermore, Dob, jist like the rest of us scattered round these hills."

"Th-they's more of ye?"

"Next question?"

Dob gulped. "Kin ye give me wizard powers, so's I kin work the magic o'the Holy Ghost?"

The face laughed down there, a weird, raspy little laugh as it rolled its green gla.s.sy eyes.

"I don't do that."

"Oh."

"I know things though, secrets n'sich."

"Kin ye grant wishes then?"

"Awww, I could, but I won't."

"Why not, ain't I the one dug ye up?"

"Oh sure, Dobber, yer a sleuthin fool, the cat's jammies. But grantin wishes and that kind of fiddle-faddle, that's fit fer one among many, the rarest o'birds."

"Awww, c'mon--"

"Cain't do it."

"I'll cover ye back up."

"Go right on ahead, Dob. Foller yer heart."

"But--I only gotta couple er three wishes mebbe--"

"This is the worst part, this gits right weariful--"

"Please--"

"They's riddles ye never dreamed of, Dob, afore I could mess with any such wishes."

"C'mon ast me em now, I got G.o.d's finger in my poke--"

"Ohhh, awright. How many magpie they sleep, how many magpie fit the tree?"

"Huh?"

"That's the first stumper. How many magpie they sleep, how many magpie fit the tree?"

"Uh---two."

"Wrong. Now--kin we git down ter bidness?"

"I thank I might jist putta bullet in my haid and yers both," wept Dob.

"How would yer Nonny feel about that?"

"b.u.t.ta...b.u.t.ta...my Nonny..."

"Don't bust nothin, Dob, take er easy--"

"Wh-whud would she be thankin bout you, hyere in this hole?"

"Plenty."

"Lucky fer you and me she daid."

"Wouldn't bet the mule on it, not in these hills."

"Ain't got no mule," blinked Dob. He was getting confused, had forgotten what he came for. But those green marble eyes had not.

"Open ye ears Dobber Magee. Mebbe I ain't no genie in a bottle but I kin tell ye things. Secret things that folks is thankin."

"Dog-dang, why'nt ye say so," Dob blurted. He might make Wizard yet. "You kin tell Dob them thangs, thangs in their haids?"

"You betcher."