"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?"

"Awww---mebbe. Afore long. We due another stab at secession. Naw don't let it fret ye--they's more whar that come 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, flushing 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 joshing 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 shirt. 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.

"N-naw, th-thank ye Mr. Weaver, but I done et..."

"So how ye come to be hyere?" smiling Ash asked him.

But you think old goony Dobber Magee is a perverted dimwit and worse, you figure Toodlem should be in a cage, don't you Mr. Weaver? So says the moonface. You can call it rest home or a sanatorium or what you will, but it's still a cage you're wanting for her.

"Eeerrr--I wuz jist takin a kinda detour through ye place, from the crick over t'the road. Hope ye don't mind?"

"A detour, huh?" Ash was chuckling.

Wouldn't you like to know, Mr. Weaver? You and your witchy witchwife Melba and your witchy notions about other folks' business.

"That's right. Been a-choppin weed fer Mizz Jackson and wanted to git t'home afore dark."

"Sure--sure Dobber, I git ye. You go right on ahead. Detour through my place anytime yer a mind to."

"Thank ye, Mr. Weaver. Yer supper's a-gittin cold I spect..."

"Evenin Dob."

Dob loped off toward the road, as if he were leaving. Ash Weaver stood there with his eggs for a spell, watching him go, but nearing the barn Dob threw a glance over his shoulder and saw Ash go up the kitchen steps then inside to the thrill of those childish voices. Dob ducked into the Weaver's barn.

He poked around the barn's workbench, amongst the tools and paint thinner, until he found a half-empty can of anti-freeze. Dob had a quick looksee at the yard, the lost family of gigglers kept feasting on their devilish supper--feasting in their unholiest of kitchens as Dob bent over and dashed across the yard, into the log cistern house. As he poured the anti-freeze into their water supply, he was thinking it was the least they deserved, it was the righteous thing after all the moonface had told him, rasping out their vicious secrets from down in its hole. The anti-freeze might not kill them, but it would sure make them sick enough to regret it, sick enough maybe that their hair would fall out and they would get skin spots and folks would think them unnaturally peculiar and maybe these Weavers would repent and see the backsliding profanity of their ways. Reap it, he said, hearing the children giggle again as he drained the can.

When Dob got to Black Elam's shanty the wind was kicking dry chaff and dust in his face. Black Elam lived on the outskirt of Cayuga Ridge, his shanty sat back in the field behind the Livery. As Dob lingered around his door, he could hear Black Elam in there snoring, probably sleeping off some shine. Black Elam liked to drink shiney and sing camp songs to his dogs. He had over twenty of those dog-dang dogs and would up and adopt the next stray that came sniffing for sc.r.a.ps. A lot of n.i.g.g.e.rs were like that.

Dob went around back and poured some coal oil he had brought from the Weavers along the back wall of Elam's shanty. He lit a match to the MYSTERIES OF THE HUMAN MIND, pitched the tract, and scampered of into the woods to watch. Pretty soon the flames took hold, then a lot of barking and cussing and the door flew open. Old Black Elam came prancing outside barefoot, holding two mongrels, choking bad from the smoke. A slew of hounds bounded outside with him, yelping, raising a ruckus as flames leapt across the roof of the tiny shack.

"Git outer thar, Mugg---Lulu!" Elam hollered at the hounds, doing a jig in his flea-bitten union suit. "Hep!--hep po Elam!--hits afarrr--afarrr!"

For shame on Black Elam. Shame on your dog-dang gutter thoughts and gutter believings. Dob had heard all he needed to hear, heard it from a hole in the ground.

"Hep!---brang dat water quick man---s.h.i.t, ain't no use--" Black Elam stopped and stood there amongst the jumping dogs, watching fire consume his worldly possessions as w.i.l.l.y Jay ran out of his store to join the bucket brigade forming out back of the Livery. Luke Boyett, his step-daddy and a handful of teenagers from Bible school began a feeble line of water, but not before one side of the shanty collapsed. "Aw mercy me Mistah Luke--dey boint mah owny shoes, mah owny shoes!"

Reap it n.i.g.g.e.r, Dob was thinking. You better reap the h.e.l.lfire of your vile, sulphur-stinking notions. You might think Dobber Magee is dumber than ox flop, or what about your filthy daydreams about Toodlem and you the same time thinking she was plumb pitiful? but you had no call wishing Dobber Magee's little baby--Baby Lawson---wishing he had been put down, put to sleep like a runt piggy with rickets, dog-dang you. Right then and there, Dob decided all lonesome n.i.g.g.e.rs should be put to sleep.

The bucket brigade gave up and Dob saw Preacher Polk standing on the Church stoop, arms folded, watching in his high black collar, but never moving to help. His preacherly thoughts were plenty bad about Dobber, but then, Preacher Polk felt pretty much the same about his entire flock. Dob pulled further back into the trees, retreating from Cayuga Ridge. w.i.l.l.y Jay was the only one who never said or harbored a slur against him. w.i.l.l.y and Toodlem. He'd leave Preacher Polk to his own h.e.l.lfires, he was the man of G.o.d and Dob wouldn't mess with him. Nor would he take vengeance on Nursy Jane, though she was surely the worst. So bad he couldn't bear to ponder her abomination. Still, she was a healer, the womenfolk and Baby Lawson took to her and depended on her. She was a seed of Satan but Dob was too spooked by her omens to smight her.

So he hustled away from the sinners of Cayuga Ridge, leaving them go. There must have been much smoke and cinder in the wind though, because, not far up Pearlwick Road, last light was fading ever-so-fast as Nursy Jane's surplus-white jeep came rumbling around the bend. The jeep skidded and stopped. So did Dobber Magee. She was about Dob's age, but seemed a lifetime older in her starched white smock. Nursy Jane saw the blood on his shirt. She climbed out. Her voice came like low music as she moved toward him.

"Dob, are you awright--?"

Dob said nothing. His eye did not wander.

"I just come from seein yer baby to the Leapfeather's. And Toodlem said you come by and hurt the cow."

He began to quake, he felt the whalebone knife in his pocket. There was no tolerating such a harlot staining the memory of such a sainted Nonny as His Nonny. She was sick, ailing for a long time with tremors and visitations. Not demented, you wh.o.r.e. Never, never, never ever, not never demented.

"Is--is that true, Dob?" she asked, reaching out, Nursy Jane looked so sad.

One of his hands flew up and crushed her windpipe.

"Weren't no skizzo! Hear me?! Weren't no dog-dang skizzo--she weren't!" Dob was wailing. He throttled her and stabbed her and kept stabbing, gouging, flaying until her blood stained Dob from head to crooked toe.

Then he ran and ran into the feverish wind, up Pearlwick Road, through trees and briars, up the clefts toward Riddle Top. He fell and retched in the gra.s.s, then he got up and ran some more. Uncovering the hole, he began to beg, drooling down his chin.

"Whud I do now, gotter tell me, whud I dooo now--?"

Deep in the hole, the moonface was whooping, vast gales of laughter.

"Haaawww, Dob, ye didn't have ter go n'killer did ye?" The green marble eyes rolled, raspy jubilation burst from the cracked lips. "Haaawww-hawww-hooo-dee-hooo-de-hoooooo!"

"Hep me undo hit, like ye done before--"

"Heeehee--naw, ye kilt her good this time Dobber boy, this'n is deader'n Dixie, cain't hep ye thar--"

"b.u.t.ta--b.u.t.ta--whud she thunk about Nonny. She'uz plumb nasty to thank sich as that!"

"Hooo-hoo-hee-hee-hoooo---whudsay?"

"Nonny weren't no mad thang. I ain't no fruit o'no mad thang!"

"h.e.l.l if she weren't Dobber. I'uz jist a-visitin with her t'other day an she's tetched, mighty tetched I tell ye!"

Dob's head boggled to the core. He squealed and began shoving dirt into the hole, his hands clammered madly, grabbing earth and hurling it down onto the hooting face. The moonface's lips began to sputter as his laughter filled with grit.

"Whooa---Dob--wait--" it spat and ground its tongue, "--wait, we kin do bidness."

But Dobber bawled for the hills to hear; railing at the eyes of night, he buried the face and fled, up onto Riddle Top where he prayed they would never find him.

T A R B A B Y.

Claud took the albino toad off her tongue, then plopped the toad in a moonlit gla.s.s. Her toadlet glowed pink and white in the milky water. She puckered, squeaked her chair forward a notch and pondered the fruits of sleep, eternal sleep and life everlasting. Kasper John was already snoring across the room.

Claud slept in the hooky slew betwixt Choat's Peak and Old Riddle Top. Most nights she slept sitting up since her legs had been sawed off. It was a sight easier than putting herself to bed, though some nights it was warmer under her dead mama's patchwork. She could always ask little brother to help her from the chair--Kasper John was only forty-seven and his back hadn't quit on him yet. But she liked it here by the window where she could tune in the stars and the lovely voices from beyond. Needed her voices, she did. You know the kind.

Not that she slept much these days. Her sleep was often disturbed. There were too many intrusions.

Sometimes her toes felt a tickle and she went to scratch them that weren't there. They still fooled her, every time. It had been almost a dozen years since the sugar diabetes got into her chunky legs, since dead Doc Sax took them off on the kitchen table over there; but sometimes she'd swear her legs hurt just as bad as ever. There was no justice in it. She could not walk, but wherever her toebones were wiggling without her tonight, they could still riddle Miss Claud with a blue-edged pain and even bluer old blues for to trouble her sleep. But not Kasper John Turlow. You couldn't trouble him. Who dared? Who would want to trip his slow, rattled breath over there, in the darkness? Yes. He always slept the night.

And wouldn't he get up dull in the morning when she sc.r.a.ped the skillet onto the woodstove, and wouldn't he sit at that butcher's table through breakfast, barely awake and muttering in one long drone about how tired a body felt? Then her brother would spend tomorrow yawning around the place, barely awake as usual and never quite figuring out why. It seemed to Claud that long, tall Kasper John had never really wakened since they were babies. Not like her own keen and wasting life at all. He had been stuck here forever betwixt Choat's Peak and Old Riddle Top, just as she had. But Kasper John was steady, forever steady, if your idea of steady was a flat rock with no expression and no plans to speak of. He even looked much the same to her, though Claud knew his face must have seasoned over the years. But then, Johnny was pretty old from the get go.

For Claud, creeping closer to sixty meant too, too much had changed for her to ever sleep easy. She heard him murmur, looked over to see his bones ripple on the bunk. She was trying not to dwell on the lost pieces of herself, misplaced heartsongs that little brother would know piddling about.