The diamond bikini - By Charles Williams Page 0,80

for the ark. He sure figured the flood was going to hit here about sunrise, I thought. It was an odd-looking board, and I wondered where he was getting them now. It didn’t seem to make much difference, though.

The sheriff came down the hill looking like an old, old man. He sat down on the step and took off his hat and just looked down at his feet. He was whipped.

“Pop and Uncle Sagamore have just disappeared,” I told him.

He didn’t act like he even heard me.

“Well, this is the end of everything,” he says. “I’m finished. When they have to send in help to handle something I couldn’t take care of myself—” He stopped and shook his head.

I could hear the wreckers moving the cars up by the gate, and then I saw Booger and Otis and the other deputy coming down the hill. It was full daylight.

The sheriff got up kind of slow and hopeless and walked around the side of the house, like he wanted to be alone and didn’t want his deputies to see him beaten down like that. Booger and Otis came on down through the yard and just collapsed on the steps. Nobody said anything.

Then, all of a sudden, the sheriff came flying back around in front of the house. I could hardly believe it was the same man. He was just scooting over the ground. Tears was running down his cheeks and he was making a funny sound down in his throat.

Otis and Booger sprung up. “What is it?” they asked.

“...wug—wug—wug—” the sheriff says. He plucked at Booger’s and Otis’s sleeves and then backed away from them a little, pointing towards the house with the other arm.

His mouth worked, but nothing came out except “...ffffttt—ssssshhhhhh—” It looked like he was laughing, or maybe strangling, and those great big tears kept rolling down his cheeks.

He pulled at their sleeves again and ran a little way ahead of them, like a dog trying to get someone to follow him. He was gasping for breath and I knew he was trying to say something, but the words just wouldn’t come out.

Booger and Otis looked at each other. Then Otis shook his head and looked down at the ground, “Damn it,” he says, like he was about to cry hisself, “what could you expect, with all he’s been through?”

The sheriff’s upper plate fell out and he stepped on it. He put it back in upside down and tried to close his mouth over it. He stepped up real close to Booger and put his left hand on Booger’s shoulder, still holding the right one out to point at the house. It looked like he wanted to dance. Booger started to take a few steps with him, probably figuring it would be better not to get him angry.

“Gwufff,” the sheriff says. He broke away from Booger and ran back around the side of the house.

“We better get them teeth away from him before he bites hisself,” Otis says.

Booger frowned. “No. I think he wants us to follow him.”

Sure, that was it. That was what he’d wanted all along, only he just couldn’t say anything. We ran around the house past the tubs, and into the back yard. And there he was.

He was on his knees in the dirt with his hands clasped together down in front of him, looking at the rear wall of the house, or what should have been the rear wall. He was crying like a baby.

I looked. And I never seen anything like it in my life.

Eighteen

It was like a stage.

Uncle Finley had pulled about ten or twelve planks off the back of the house, and had opened up one whole side of a hidden room nobody had ever known was there. It was about three feet wide and ran the full length of that back bedroom, from the kitchen wall to this end of the house. There was no doors in it, and no windows, but there was a trap door. That was closed.

And there was Pop. And Uncle Sagamore. And Mrs. Home. And Baby Collins. And Choo-Choo Caroline.

They was all sound asleep, sitting on the floor with their backs against the other wall, facing out this way. There was a lantern, still burning, hanging from a nail in the wall above their heads. It looked funny, burning that way in broad daylight. Uncle Sagamore was in the middle. Mrs. Home and Baby Collins had their heads dropped on his shoulders. And Pop