pine trees on both sides, plus Uncle Sagamore’s wire fence along this edge of it. I looked up that way, and it was just jammed with cars, bumper to bumper. They was going slow because each car had to give Uncle Sagamore a dollar, and that jammed them up behind. Some of them was honking their horns, and men was yelling, wanting to know what the trouble was.
Just as I walked up alongside Uncle Sagamore the car making the turn stopped, but the driver didn’t hold out a dollar. He was a big red-faced man with a white moustache and there was another man in the front seat with him.
The man driving jerked his head at the sign and then shouted at Uncle Sagamore. “You think I’m going to pay a dollar to park out here in the country? You’re nuts.”
The other man in the seat jabbed him with his elbow, and whispers, “Shhhh! Hush, you dam’ fool. That’s Sagamore Noonan.” He was a real skinny man with a big Adam’s apple that kept on going up and down when he talked.
“I don’t give a goddam who he is,” the red-faced one says. “I ain’t going to pay no dollar to park.”
Cars behind was beginning to blow their horns at the delay. Somebody stuck his head out back down the line. “Hey, what the hell’s the matter with you guys up there? You want ‘em to find her before we get there?”
“Shut up!” The red-faced one shouted. “This here bandit’s tryin’ to hold us up.”
Uncle Sagamore spit and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, real thoughtful. Then he reached down by the gate post for something. By golly, it was his shotgun. I hadn’t seen it before. He hefted it once and slid the safety catch back and forth, and then leaned on the car window with it across his arm. The end of the barrel was sticking right in the big man’s face. Only his face wasn’t red now. It was white, and getting whiter by the second. Big drops of sweat collected on his forehead.
Uncle Sagamore cocked his ear around a little by turning his head like a deaf person, and says, “How was that again? Them horns back there was makin’ so much noise I didn’t quite catch what you was sayin’.”
“Oh,” the big man says. “Oh, I was—unjust sayin’ I sure hope we find that there girl.” He took a dollar bill out of his pocket and reached it out real careful like it might blow up in his face.
Uncle Sagamore took it and waved for him to go on. Cars kept right on coming. I never saw money pouring into anything like the dollars pouring into his flour sack. It was just like a two-dollar window on Saturday. Sometimes a man would give him a five or a ten, and Uncle Sagamore would just reach down inside the sack and come out with a wad of ones as big as a hat to count out the change. Then he’d stuff the rest back in, along with the five or the ten. Silver coins went right in the sack along with the paper money.
One or two more started to give him an argument, so he just kept the shotgun in the crook of his arm. It saved picking it up each time, and it seemed like it also cut down on the arguments a lot too. There was no way the cars could back up, if they didn’t want to pay, because they was bumper to bumper way back as far as you could see, and there wasn’t room to turn around. So they just had to come on in, and when they did they had to pay. I could see Uncle Sagamore was going to make a fortune if this lasted very long. The sack was already beginning to bulge and rattle at the bottom.
In nearly all the cars somebody would stick his head out as they came through, and ask, “They found her yet?”
For a while Uncle Sagamore would say, “No. Not yet.” Then he took to just saying, “No.” And finally he quit even that and just shook his head.
A truck come through carrying ice and tubs and cases of pop and a big icebox and a stove. The man driving it was Murph. Uncle Sagamore waved him on through without the dollar, and says, “They’re buildin’ the stand down there now across from the carnival.”
Murph nodded. “Looks like a