[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

could tell by the trampling and crashing through the
brush ahead that there was a whole army of them up
ahead of us trying to keep up with the dogs. The
uproar got further and further away, going down
towards the bottom.
The sheriff had to stop and rest. He sat down on a
stump and pulled out the big red handkerchief to
mop his face. He sighed and shook his head.  You
just don t know what it can do to you, he says to the
deputy, real bitter and discouraged.  I mean, waking
up in the dead of night with the cold sweat on you,
wondering what the hell he ll do next. And the awful
part of it is even after you ve found out, you ain t
going to be able to pin it on him. All you can do is go
around and sort of pick up the pieces. He ain t done a
lick of work in forty years that I know of; he s got
The Diamond Bikini 174
plenty of time to plan these things so he s two moves
ahead of you all the time.
 Now you take this one. He knows perfectly well I
can t order that carnival out of here even if it could
get out, which it can t because the road s clogged
with abandoned cars which he also knew would
happen. He knows I can t order it out and break up
this thing because it s got a permit to operate in this
county. So while the whole damn state s in a uproar
over a naked cooch dancer that probably ain t even
down here, he s drawin a fat rake-off from the
hamburgers and dancing girls and wheels-of-fortune
and the floozies, beside selling moonshine to  em at
New York prices and charging them a dollar to park
their cars into a solid snarl.
 And now, you mark my words, before it s over
there ll be something else, too like maybe a big
mudhole suddenly developing in the road and when
they do get the road clear everybody will get stuck
and have to be pulled out at two dollars a head.
 Sheriff, I says,  you mean you still don t think
Miss Caroline was with me?
He took off his hat and mopped his head again.  I
don t really know what I think any more, Billy, he
says.  I do believe you re telling the truth, in spite of
your handicap of being a member of the Noonan
family. I believe she was with you, but where she is
now I wouldn t even try to guess. Do you hear them
dawgs?
 Yes, I says.  Sounds like they re pretty far over
there.
He nodded.  They re about two miles away, and
still going across the bottom. That girl was
barefooted, and she couldn t have walked three
hundred yards, but before the day s over you re
going to find out the dawgs has followed her trail
somewhere around eighteen to twenty miles, back
and forth across this bottom. There ll be three or four
thousand men following  em, and every time they
double back up past the carnival a fresh bunch of
tired ones will drop off the rest and pay a dollar to
The Diamond Bikini 175
watch the belly dancers, and eat hamburgers that ll
get smaller and smaller and have more and more
oatmeal in them and will be selling for a dollar and a
half by sundown. I been through all this before. Not
this particular one, mind you, but with the same
Sagamore Noonan touches.
I kind of liked the sheriff, but it seemed to me like
he was too excitable and he did too much griping
about Uncle Sagamore. I couldn t see anything
wrong with him trying to get as many people as he
could down here to look for Miss Caroline. I was
worried about her, and I didn t think we ought to be
just sitting here when she still hadn t been found.
 Hadn t we better start after the dogs again? I
says.  They re still barking like they re on the trail,
and they ll have to catch up with her sooner or later.
 You don t have to follow bloodhounds that close,
he says.  You just listen to see which way they re
going. I think they re beginning to swing now, so
they ll be back up this way before long. My guess is
they ll go through the edge of that cornfield up there
behind the house.
Well, we waited. And sure enough, it wasn t but
about half an hour before we could hear them and
the whole army of men that was following them go
crashing through the underbrush and timber about a
furlong off to the right of us. We went over there just
in time to get a glimpse of the dogs, and then we was
running along in a swarm of men. The dogs went up
the hill and then, by golly, it was just like the sheriff
had said. They cut along the edge of the cornfield,
down back of the barn, and then headed out across
the bottom again.
The sheriff looked furious, but him and the deputy
started back down that way. Several hundred of the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]