Jingo Django (7 page)

“Why, lad, a whale's tooth ain't worth filchin' — didn't you know that?”

“Then why did you come all this way to filch it?” I answered, as if it were all a mystery to me and to set his mind at rest.

“Me and Daggatt only want it for sentimental reasons, ye might say. Aye, sentimental reasons.”

At last the door flew open and there, gripping a candlestick, stood Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-
Jones.

“My dear sir,” he snapped. “You must be the noisiest thief in your profession. You will do yourself a service by returning whatever you have found to lay your grubby hands on.”

General Scurlock leveled his pistol. “You'll do yourself a service, sir, by standing out of my way.”

“Ah. So I see.”

He stepped aside to let General Scurlock pass. I was certain Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones would spring into action, and held my breath. But he hardly lifted an eyebrow.

“Do watch your footing on the stairs,” he said. “It's dark and you're apt to take a bad spill.”

“Aye, I'll be careful,” General Scurlock grinned, backing through the door. “The boy'll tell ye I took nothing of worth to ye, so you won't try to follow, now will ye? I can see you've better sense than that.”

“You may depend upon it.”

“I intend to shy about in the dark and you can expect a pistol ball if you show yourself before morning.”

“Good night, sir.”

General Scurlock gave a bemused snort, pulled the door closed and was gone. I looked at Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones with a sudden rush of disappointment. He crossed the room and lit the lamp with the flame of his candle. He was smiling.

“We've got to stop him before it's too late, sir!” I said.

“Our visitor, I take it, was your former chimney master, General Scurlock.”

“He's got the whale's tooth!”

“That's splendid. I expected him to turn up.”

As I gazed at him fresh and awful thoughts started tumbling about in my head. I wondered if I could really trust Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones. He seemed perfectly satisfied that General Scurlock had made off with the treasure map. And now he occupied himself in the mere task of pulling off his boots.

“You want him to get away!” I said.

“Certainly.”

My heart began to thump. “You left a trail at every crossroads for him to follow!”

He
looked up. “True. I left a trail.”

“You're in league with him!”

He returned to his boots. “No. But as long as he has the whale's tooth, Django, we can travel without having to look back over our shoulders. Did you think for a moment you wouldn't be followed?”

“But you admitted you left a trail!” I said.

“A gypsy trail. General Scurlock wouldn't know how to read it.”

The rattle of horses' hooves rose from below and I rushed to the window. I got the merest glimpse of the chimney master vanishing phantom-like into the night. And I thought I saw Mrs. Daggatt in the buggy beside him. I turned back to Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones with a desperate, confused feeling. He was chuckling softly.

“The posturing, mutton-headed fool,” he said. “Bristling with idle threats.”

“But fool enough to make off with the scrimshaw,” I said. “And heading straight to Mexico, more'n likely.”

“I don't doubt it. But Mexico's a long way off, Django. I expect it'll be a slow race.”

“A race?”

He pulled a pin from his waistcoat. “While you slept last night — and you will forgive me,
chavo
— I borrowed the whale's tooth from under your pillow. That engraver staying with us is an exceptional fellow. He did me the service of copying the scrimshaw map on the head of this pin. I'm sure you'll be careful not to lose it.”

12

THE MAN WITH THE WHITE GOOSE

The coach was loaded up with food and fodder, and we departed the Red Jacket Inn to the crowing of roosters. It was a fine windy morning, sharp and clear, but the road was still in spring mud.

I urged the horses on as best I could, but I believe snails could have whizzed past us. General Scurlock and Mrs. Daggatt must already be in the next county, I thought.

“No point in hurrying the poor beasts,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said, stretching out his legs like a fisherman shipping his oars. “It's more than two thousand miles to Mexico. Plenty of time, Django.”

“But General Scurlock's probably streaking along like a cannon shot. He's certain to beat us to Matamoros.”

Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones smiled, and then laughed. “Don't count on it,
chavo.
We have a capital advantage. The swaggering imbecile thinks the game's entirely in his own hands. Consider, lad.
You
know it's a race,
I
know it's a race, but
he
doesn't know it's a race. So he's not about to lame his horses by whipping them all the way to the Rio Grande, is he?”

I perked up. Of course! General Scurlock may have darted off with the whale's tooth, but he didn't suspect that I was privy to its secret. Or that Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones had had the treasure map engraved on the head of a pin! That was uncommon smart of him, I thought.

The pin was run through the pocket of my hickory shirt and I kept touching it to make sure it was still there. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones hadn't been able to buy a magnifying glass. The little fat man had already sold his last one.

“We ought to be able to pick up a glass in Matamoros,” Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones said.

“But you said you weren't interested in adventuring after the cactus gold,” I remarked.

“I
may change my mind,” he said, knocking the mud off the soles of his boots with his walking stick. “It will amuse me to pluck the posthole treasure from under General Scurlock's lumpy nose.”

“And Mrs. Daggatt, too.”

“Especially Mrs. Daggatt,” he answered, in jaunty good spirits.

“Then we're going partners?”

“Splendid.”

I gave the reins a smart shake, and I'm certain there was a smile on my face. I was sorry I had suspected him the night before of being in league with General Scurlock. He appeared to have forgotten it, and I was grateful. Then I said, “Won't they be bound to discover we're following along?”

“But we're not.”

“I
saw
them, sir.”

“You saw them in a buggy. That's hardly a vehicle for a cross-country journey. And Mrs. Daggatt strikes me as a woman who demands every ease and comfort. They fled back to Boston — you can be sure of that.”

Mishto!
Instead of creaking along behind we now appeared to have a fine head start. “Boston, for sure,” I agreed. “She gulches down a quantity of food. They'll have to load up an extra wagon.”

“I rather imagine she'll attempt to book passage on a ship with a port of call along the Gulf. New Orleans, most likely. They'll be lucky if they don't have to cool their heels in Boston for a month or two.”

“Unless General Scurlock comes on alone,” I said.

He shook his head. “Those two don't trust each other any further than you can throw a barn, Django. That's obvious, isn't it? They won't allow one another out of each other's sight. Not for an instant.”

The thought made me want to laugh. Oh, it was going to be jolly having a partner, and he was owlishly wise. But I did wish the scenery would pass a mite faster. “Are you sure these are racehorses?”

“You have my word for it,” he said.

I
was glad to see mud time pass. Day by day the roads firmed up and spring came wide-awake. The countryside leafed out, thick and green and new, and you could hear sparrows chasing about through the trees like mice.

As the weeks wore away we covered considerable ground. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones didn't stop once to ply his trade. I reasoned that he chose to open his paint box only when he ran short of money, and he still had a pocketful.

But he never failed to stretch his legs at every fork and crossroads to mark our journey. We left a gypsy trail from Boston clear to the Mississippi River. By early summer we were joggling through the dust along the river road toward New Orleans.

The nights turned hot as a Dutch oven and we slept out, mostly. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones was not a man to curl up on the hard ground if he could avoid it. He bought a stout fishnet in Memphis, cut it in two, and we slept in airy hammocks lashed between trees. It was pleasant listening to the bullfrogs croak and the river rush by, but some nights the mosquitoes did make you wish you were somewhere else. They stung everything but the pin in my pocket, and for all I know they bent a stinger or two on that.

I can't say I did much thinking about my pa. It discomposed me some that he might be lurking somewhere along the Mexico border. I'd be glad to snatch up the treasure and make a straight shirttail out of there. I hoped he wouldn't turn up while we were about it. It was enough to chill the spine and I tried to keep my imagination in check.

We stopped in Natchez to have the horses reshod and I remember saying to Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones, “Your cheeks are red as flannel, sir.”

“A mere touch of the heat,” he scoffed, and we continued on our way.

But the next day, while the sun beat down hot as blazes, he dug out a blanket and wrapped it around himself.

“Are you all right, sir?” I asked.

“Splendid,” he said.

But in the middle of the night he had such a chill that the chattering of his teeth woke me. I didn't know what to do for him and began to worry something fierce. By morning I figured we
had
best turn about for Natchez and find a doctor.

“Natchez?” he scoffed. “Have you lost your reason? You can't win a race by turning around. I'm fit to travel, lad. The sooner we step along the quicker we'll see Matamoros. And not a moment to lose, Django. Shall we be off?”

His teeth had stopped rattling — that was true — but he did appear dreadfully weak climbing onto the coach seat. He wouldn't let me help him. He folded his arms defiantly and we lurched on down the road.

“Wouldn't you like the blanket around you?” I asked.

He dismissed the matter with a scornful smile. “In this heat? Certainly not. Watch that chunk hole in the road, won't you?”

I thought maybe he had thrown off his fever during the night, but by midmorning his teeth began to clack and rattle, and I knew the chills were upon him again. But now he stubbornly refused blankets and forbid me to mention Natchez again.

I drove on. I had never in my life had anyone but myself to care about, and it came as a surprise that every shake of his bones pained me so much. He was in the grip of a high fever. As I rode beside him it was like sitting near a red-hot stove.

His lips looked as dry as bread crusts and before long he stopped making any sense at all. He mumbled and snorted and raged to himself, and I calculated he had slipped out of his mind.

I pulled up on the reins and stopped in the road. I looked behind, over my shoulder. It would use up more than a day to travel back to Natchez, but I made up my mind on the spot and turned the coach around.

“Billygoat! Sunflower!” I cried out. “Step lively, can't you!”

They were strong and steady beasts, but they wouldn't be rushed. I snapped the reins and thundered at them, but they strolled along like cows.

Not far away I spied a man fishing along the bank of the river.

“Is the nearest doctor in Natchez?” I shouted.

He spit tobacco juice. “Nope,” he said.

My heart took a leap. “Where can I find him?”

“You lookin' for a horse doctor or a man doctor?”

“Any doctor'll do,” I answered desperately.

“Well,
there's Doc Custis. Claims to be a man doctor, but folks around here suspicion he's just a vet with uppity ideas.”

“Where is he?”

“You're a-headin' in the wrong direction, son.” He pointed south. “Down the road a piece. I saw him not twenty minutes ago. Look for a white house set in a stand of chinaberry trees. If you see a man on the roof with a white goose — that's Doc Custis.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Don't thank me, son,” he said and returned to his fishing.

I turned the coach about once more and shook the reins. Before long a large white house with four porch columns turned up on the left. It might have been a grand place once, but the paint was peeling off and the yard had shot up in weeds.

Sure enough, a man stood on the roof with a dirty white goose.

13

DR. CUSTIS AND OTHER VARMINTS

I pulled into the front yard, scattering hogs and chickens, and shouted up to the roof.

“You Dr. Custis, sir?”

The man was about to lower the goose down one of the chimneys on a long rope. He peered at me from under the brim of a floppy straw hat.

“Ain't visitin' hours,” he snorted. “Come back, next week.”

He looked uglier'n homemade soap to me and I wondered if he had all his wits, dropping that honking goose down the chimney.

“This gentleman's dreadful sick,” I cried. “A man up the road said you were a doctor.”

“Did he? Well, squatters around here are born liars,” he grumbled.

“Aren't you Dr. Custis?”

“The doctor is busy. You can see that.”

I was desperate. I wished there might be another medical man about, but he would have to do. Mr. Peacock-Hemlock-Jones was now melting away in a heavy sweat.

“This gentleman is mortal sick,” I declared. “If you're a doctor you'll surely want to help him.”

“He been gun shot?”

“No, sir. Fever and chills and out of his head some.”

“Only bilious fever, then. Come back next week at two o'clock.”

“No, sir!” I answered stoutly. “He needs tending and I don't aim to move an inch until you come down.”