The diamond bikini - By Charles Williams Page 0,68

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There was a big commotion up the hill then, in that jam of cars just this side of the gate. And just as I looked, three big hound dogs came lunging through the last row of cars and into the open section of the road. They was yanking along some man that had hold of their leashes, and then they gave a big lunge and pulled him off his feet. He slid along on his stomach for maybe his own length before he could get up, and when he did and I got a look at his face, doggone if it wasn’t the sheriff. He was dusty and sweaty and limping a little, and his face was purple. It looked like he was cussing the dogs or something, but they was baying and the loudspeakers was going on with Uncle Sagamore’s speech, so you couldn’t be sure. Behind him was another man with three more of the big, long-eared dogs.

They come on down and hit the edge of the crowd and began pushing their way through, being more or less pulled along by the bloodhounds or whatever they was. Just as they got down in front of the stage, Uncle Sagamore looked out and saw them.

“Well sir, by golly,” he says into the microphone. “Here’s the shurf. He’s come to help us. It’s just like I was sayin’, men, he might be a little late gettin’ on the job, but I knowed he wouldn’t let us down.”

The sheriff got the dogs stopped. He looked up at us on the stage and at the five naked girls behind us, and he pointed at Uncle Sagamore with his mouth open and his face as purple as a ripe plum, but you couldn’t tell whether he was saying anything or not.

“I always said that shurf was a damn good man,” Uncle Sagamore went on, “an’ I tell you right now there wasn’t never the slightest doubt in my mind that he’d come here sooner or later an’ help us out in our hour of need. I got to admit, though, that it does seem to me like it was kind of cheap of the shurf’s office not to offer no more than a little old measly five-hundred-dollar reward for that girl. I’d be the last one in the world to find fault, but it does seem to me they could of made it at least a thousand.”

The crowd let out another big cheer.

Uncle Sagamore finished up. “Well, I ain’t goin’ to stand here an’ jaw at you fellers all day. You don’t want to look at no homely old bastard like me, with all them pretty girls up here to dance for you. So I thank you kindly.”

He stepped away from the microphone and the man came back. “All right, folks,” he says, “now we’ll give you a little sample of the stupendous show you’ll see inside the tent. So step right up and get your ticket. Only one dollar—”

Music blared out of the loudspeaker then and we all got down off the stage so the girls could dance. It was real pretty to watch. They kicked their legs up high and wiggled all over.

Men was pushing around the little stand to buy tickets. I followed Pop and Uncle Sagamore down towards the house. The Sheriff was shoving his way through the crowd with the dogs, and I could see he was trying to catch up with us. I caught Uncle Sagamore’s arm.

“I think the sheriff wants to see you,” I says.

He stopped. “Why, sure,” he says. We was under the big tree near Mrs. Home’s shiny trailer.

The sheriff come up. He handed the leashes of the three hounds to the other man to hold.

He waved his hand, sort of. “Sagamore Noonan—” he says. He rubbed both hands across his face and tried again. “Sagamore Noonan—” It seemed like that was as far as he could get. He was breathing real hard.

Uncle Sagamore leaned against the tree and shifted his tobacco over into his other cheek real thoughtful. “Why, yes, Shurf,” he says. “Did you want to talk to me?”

The sheriff says, “—ffffftt—sshhh—ffffttt—”

It reminded me of when he tried to open the jar of tannery juice and spilled it all over his clothes. It looked like the words was all jammed up inside him and he couldn’t get ‘em turned length-wise so they would come out. He reached in the pocket of his coat and brought out something. It was two things,