The Mystery of the Canebrake Page 3

  He’s still mad, and he knows it was some boy from Norphlet.

  It was getting late and the talking broke up when we had to go home for supper. Me and Sniffer headed home, with me still thinking about the Saturday’s picture show at the Ritz.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Hooting at the Ritz

  That Saturday morning the paper route went fast, and I did my chores and ate breakfast in record time. John Clayton came over and we waited around for Daddy to take us into El Dorado.

  “Shoot, Richard, I can’t believe we ain’t gonna do any tricks at the Ritz today.”

  “Well, I don’t know, John Clayton, ’cause of that stuff we did last summer Old Man Slater is watchin’ us like a hawk, and if we make one funny move he’s gonna grab us up and beat the tar outta us with that big belt. Heck, I might try something next week, but if I miss this Tarzan picture show I’d really be ticked off.”

  “Yeah, you’re probably right, but what if we did just one little trick, you know, maybe hootin’ like an owl? We can get Tiny and Ears to sit in the back corners of the theater, and we can sit in the front corners, and, heck, Joe Rel and Billy Ray will hoot from the balcony.”

  Well, we talked about that for another few minutes, and I thought it sounded like just a little something that wouldn’t be a big thing at all.

  “Yeah, that sounds like fun,” I said, “and, shoot, I’ll bring something with some long chicken feathers stuck in it and Joe Rel can let it down on a string from the balcony. That outta top off the trick real good.”

  “Okay, that’s sounds like fun. Anyway, it won’t cause any big flap like some of our other stuff.”

  “Oh, yeah—remember it’s my time to get in free.”

  “No, it’s not, Richard, I let you in last week and the week before that.”

  ’Course, I knew it was his turn, but, heck, it don’t hurt none to try.

  “Well, yeah, maybe you did.”

  Me and John Clayton take turns paying for our tickets, and then after the picture show starts the one that paid goes down behind the curtain and opens the outside exit door for the other one. Last year John Clayton got sick and was looking for a place to throw up, when he went behind the curtain and found the door that led into the alley.

  Daddy got us to the theater a few minutes early for the Tarzan movie, and we had time to line up Tiny, Ears, Joe Rel, and Billy Ray.

  “Listen, everybody, this is the way we’re gonna do this owl trick: Be listenin’ and right after the trailers and before the main picture show starts, I’ll give the first hoot. It’ll be three loud, long hoots. Then, Joe Rel, you start from the balcony, and we’ll go ’round in a circle until old man Slater comes runnin’ out and stops us. Here, Joe Rel, you slip this under your shirt along with this fishing line.”

  I pulled out a sock that I’d stuffed with cotton and had stuck a bunch of long chicken feathers in.

  “Good Lord, that thing looks awful,” mumbled Joe Rel. “I don’t know if I wanta do this trick. It’s gonna scare the heck out of some of them little kids when this thing flies down from the balcony and swings around in front of that big screen.”

  “Oh, come on, Joe Rel. I’ll give you a nickel if you’ll do it,” I said. That was all it took ’cause Joe Rel never has any extra money to buy popcorn.

  “Okay, but if Old Man Slater catches me, I’m gonna tell him it was you, Richard.”

  “Heck, Joe Rel, he’ll never know; I promise.” Joe Rel finally nodded yes, and took the fake owl.

  “Okay, let’s go buy our tickets. Tiny, you and Ears can go with John Clayton and I’ll let you in.”

  I walked up and bought my ticket, and I’d just handed it to the lady taking up tickets when I felt someone grab my shoulder.

  “Wait just a minute, kid.”

  It was Old Man Slater, the theater manager.

  “Uh, what is it, sir?”

  “Kid, if one thing happens in that theater today, I’m gonna come after you with this belt. Do you understand?”

  “Oh, Mr. Slater, I wouldn’t do nothin’ to mess up the Tarzan picture show. Tarzan is my favorite.”

  “Humph.”

  Old man Slater shook his head and shoved me toward the door to the auditorium. I slipped down near the front and when the newsreels started, I walked down and eased behind the curtains, pushed open the exit door, and let the other guys in. We separated and waited. Finally, the last of the trailers finished, and I let out the first three hoots from over in the corner.

  Everybody looked over my way and then three more hoots came from the balcony, then three from down front and more from the back. Kids started giggling and several joined in. Soon the whole theater was one big bunch of hoots, and Old Man Slater ran in with his big flashlight and started shinning it around.

  When he shined it on a group of kids, they stopped hooting, but the kids behind him kept going and he’d turn around and shine the lights on them, and then the kids in front would start back up. Boy, after about five minutes of that Old Man Slater was hopping mad, and he pulled his belt off and started running up and down the aisle screaming, “I’m gonna beat the blue perfect hell out of the next kid I see hooting!”

  But nobody hooted when he shinned the flashlight on them.

  I looked up at the balcony rail and, sure enough, Joe Rel had started letting the fake owl down on fishing line. The kids downstairs didn’t see it until Joe Rel jerked the fishing line and made the sock owl swoop around. Then he let more string out until the owl was right above the downstairs kids’ heads and in front of the screen where it made a giant owl on the screen.

  ’Course, everybody saw the fake owl then, and, sure enough, the little kids screamed and headed for the exits, almost trampling down Old Man Slater, who was trying to calm them down. Joe Rel, after seeing all them little kids just going crazy dropped the string and the fake owl fell in the middle of a bunch of kids out in the aisle who let out the biggest scream I’ve ever heard.

  Finally, the screen filled with a picture of Tarzan standing on a big rock beating on his chest, and the crowd suddenly just got real quiet. Tarzan of the Apes had started.

  Gosh, that was the very best picture show I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life, and when Tarzan and the natives dug the big pit, covered it with leaves, and captured the bad men—wow, was that great, and everybody in the theater yelled and cheered. We left the theater still talking about the pit trap that Tarzan used. As we walked by Old Man Slater, he looked over and then turned around and said something to a kid who was pushing to get out the door, and we both hooted. He turned around, red in the face; “Who did that?”

  I shook my head and then I saw stupid Homer Ray coming out right behind me. I looked at Old Man Slater and pointed at Homer Ray. Old Man Slater yanked his belt off, yelling: “Come here, boy; I’ll teach you to hoot at me!”

  “What? What?” hollered Homer Ray. Wow, I couldn’t believe how that little hoot was working out. Worthless Homer Ray was gonna get the fool beat outta him, and, heck, he danged sure wasn’t gonna be able to get back at me.

  Whap! Whap! Whap! Whap!

  Boy, that belt dug into Homer Ray’s legs, and he let out scream after scream as he jumped around.

  “Come on, Richard, Homer Ray saw you point him out,” said Ears.

  We hightailed it down the street, and we were in Woolworth’s buying a hot dog before Old Man Salter was through with sorry Homer Ray.

  “Dang, Richard, I know that moron Homer Ray won’t beat you up, but after that thrashin’ he got from Old Man Slater, he’s gonna be just wild to get back at you. What if he takes it out on me? Heck, I’m one of your best friends.”

  “Ahaaaa, you worry too much, John Clayton.” Heck, I was just tickled pink about stupid Homer Ray getting the tar beat outta him, and I sure wasn’t worried none about him getting back at me. I didn’t know it then, but that sorry Homer Ray was gonna end up doing something really big to get back at me, and it’d cause a whole bunch of problems.

 
CHAPTER FIVE

  Indian Hill and the Canebrake

  Well, it started that next Monday just as soon as I walked onto the school grounds. It wasn’t two minutes until that worthless so-in-so, Homer Ray, was right up in my face.

  “I wanta tell you something, Richard. You caused me to get a real thrashin’ from Old Man Slater, and I ain’t ’bout to forget it.”

  “Get lost, Homer Ray, or do you wanta just slug me, and have me catch you away from the school and thump you sorry hide with ’bout 50 rocks?”

  I did a little smirk and kinda stuck out my jaw. Heck, I knew he wasn’t about to hit me. Wow, I never in my whole born days saw nobody turn so red in the face. He was almost shaking he was so mad.

  “You just wait, you little snot-head! I’ll get my turn, and, when I do, I’m gonna mop the floor with you!”

  About that time, Rosalie and Freckles came walking by and I showed out a little bit to impress the girls.

  “You’re all mouth, you yellow-belly coward! Now get outta here ‘fore I kick your ass all the way ’cross the school yard!”

  The girls stopped and Homer Ray was sure in a mess, because anything he did would look bad for him. Heck, I knew he wouldn’t hit me, so I just gave him a shove and walked over to talk with the girls. Homer Ray really wanted to kill me right there on the spot, but he just slunk away like some low-rent person.

  “Richard, I can’t believe you talked to Homer Ray like that,” Freckles said.

  Oh, Freckles, he’s all mouth. I taught him a lesson right after school started last fall, and he ain’t forgot it.” ’Course, that was a bald-faced lie, but, heck I didn’t really say how I’d taught him a lesson. Rosalie didn’t speak of ’course, but I could tell just by the way she acted that she thought I was brave, or maybe stupid. Anyway, she did give me a little look with those blue eyes, and I went into class thinking about ’em.

  At recess, all me and John Clayton could talk about was the canebrake, and, shoot, they wasn’t no doubt in my mind that we’d head down there as soon as we could. Just knowing something was living in there—and we didn’t know what it was—had us all wound up.

  I got home from school and before I even finished gathering the eggs Momma was after me to do some more stuff. Yeah, fall always makes for some added work around the farm. ’Course, most of that added work comes from Momma, ’cause she’s always making up something that I hafta help with, and today she started talking about her special Christmas fudge. It’s real good, but, shoot, I hafta do the hard part. -Well, I betcha you don’t know what the hard part of making fudge is, do you? It sure ain’t the mixing and cooking. Naw, that’s the easy part. What I have to do is the danged hard part. I know you’re just wondering what on god’s green earth could I be doing to help in the making of Momma’s special Christmas fudge. Well, her fudge is so special because it’s just full of black walnut pieces. Heck, they shor ain’t the store-bought kind, because Momma just sticks up her nose at them.

  Shoot, we’re so danged poor that anything good to eat that we can get from the woods or creeks ends up on our dinner table, and that’s where the black walnuts come in. Down back of our house, there’s a big rise in the land. It’s really more like a hill, where it looks like somebody built up a bunch of dirt. Everything around it is flat as a flitter, and then there’s this hill that looks about a hundred feet high.

  I poke around there a bunch because I’ve found some old Indian arrowheads. Well, evidently that ground is just what black walnut trees like cause they’s 10 of the biggest black walnut trees there that you’ve ever seen, and every fall the ground is just covered with them walnuts. ’Course, sacking them up and hauling them to the house is the easy part. The hard part is cracking them and picking out the meat.

  The nut part is covered with a black thick, black skin that you havta peel off before you can even start cracking the nuts. And after I peel those danged, sorry walnuts, I hafta get Daddy’s hammer and a brick and start cracking them.

  Shoot, one time Daddy came home with some English walnuts from the store, and I could crack them with my hands, but black walnuts is a whole ’nother thing. It’s, whap, whap, and then whap some more until they finally break, and then the meat of the walnut is so hard to get out that you are just forever hammering little pieces of the shell. Heck, a cup of black walnuts is a half day’s work for me, and when Momma told me she needed four cups because she was gonna make a bunch of fudge for the church, I hollered so loud you could’ve heard me for a mile. Dang, I hate cracking black walnuts!

  But let me tell you something about what we call Indian Hill. I named that hill Indian Hill after I found some arrowheads up on top. Just last week Daddy came back from El Dorado and told me about talking to some professor from the college over at Magnolia. They were just talking and it turned out the man was an expert in old stuff—you know, really old stuff from way back when the Indians was here. Well, Daddy told him they was a big hill behind our farm, and that I’d found some arrowheads there, and one thing led to another and last Saturday he drove over from Magnolia to take a look.

  We walked back there and climbed right up to the top, and he scratched around and then dug some little holes with a small shovel. Then he turned to me and Daddy and started talking about the Indians that he said used to live there.

  “Jack, this is a very interesting site. There’s no doubt that this hill is an Indian Mound, and that the Indians that lived here camped on the flat top, probably to get away from the water when the creek flooded.”

  Well, he went on and on until he was about to put us to sleep, telling us stuff that didn’t make a hill of beans difference to me. But then he said, “Yeah, Jack, from what I can see, it was at least a thousand years ago when they built this mound. Probably had a wooden temple on top, and I’d bet some of the chiefs and priests are buried right where where’re standing.”

  Wow, that was really exciting just to think of a 1000-year old mound with a temple on top and an Indian Cemetery just almost right in my back yard.

  Heck, me and John Clayton were out there the next day poking around trying to find arrowheads, when John Clayton came up with a great idea.

  “Shoot, Richard, I know what we can do. Tonight, I’ll come over and spend the night with you, and we can take our headlights and go up on top of Indian Hill and build a campfire. You know, play like we’re Indians gettin’ ready to go on the warpath.”

  Well, that sounded great, and I said, “Yeah, and we can paint up like Indians and play like we’re doing a war dance ’round the campfire.”

  We spent the rest of the afternoon getting ready, and even found a small oil drum that we tied a piece of canvas over to make an Indian tom-tom. By the time it got dark, we had enough firewood stacked up on top of the hill to make one heck of a fire. Wow, were we excited.

  It was fairly warm and we only put long-sleeved shirts on over our Indian clothes. We’d decided to wait until we got our fire going before we put on war paint. Momma and Daddy thought it was kinda funny that we were gonna play Indians, but since we’d just be about a quarter mile away, almost in our back yard, they said we could go. After supper, we took our carbide headlights and got ready to go up to Indian Hill.

  “Here, Sniffer! Here!” I yelled. We walked across our back yard as Sniffer crawled out from under the house and ran out ahead of us. Well, it didn’t take but about 20-minutes to climb the hill. After we found a good flat spot under one of the big walnut trees, we started gathering up wood for a fire. I’d brought some fat pine wood that will blaze up real quick, and heck, in 15 minutes we had the durnest fire you ever did see. Well, we took off our shirts and painted our faces and shoot, in the light of that fire we looked just like two Indians.

  “Okay, Richard, you dance ’round the fire, and I’ll beat the drum.”

  Heck, I don’t know when I’ve had so much fun. I’d dance and whoop for a little while, and then I’d beat the drum and John Clayton would dance and give out a war whoop. Sniffer would howl every tim
e one of us really whacked the drum. After about an hour, we stopped to put some more wood on the fire, and I’d just sat down on a log to rest when I spotted something on the ground.

  “Hey, what’s this?” I picked up something kinda white, which looked like a bead. John Clayton took it outta my hand and spit on it to clean it up. Then we both said, almost at once, “Oh my god, it’s a tooth!”

  Course, I felt a little chill go down my back, ’cause now we knew for danged sure we were right on top of an old Indian cemetery.

  Well, we’re 13 years old, so just finding an old tooth wasn’t about to scare us. We added some more wood to the fire, and when it was really blazing, we started back dancing.

  “Man, that drum really sounds good. Heck, I’ll bet you can hear it a mile away.”

  “Yeah, you bet, and listen to the echo from way down in Flat Creek Swamp.”

  John Clayton stopped beating the drum and, sure enough, kinda faintly, you could hear it echo. Then—“Dang, Richard, I can still hear it. That ain’t no echo!”

  Boy, I started feeling funny, and started breathing a little faster while we stood there not making a sound. Sure enough, there was a steady thump, thump, of a drum from deep in Flat Creek Swamp.

  I looked over at Sniffer, his ears were stuck straight up, and he was looking out in the dark toward the sound of the drum.

  “My god, Richard, who’s beatin’ a drum in the middle of the Swamp at ten o’clock at night?”

  “Danged if I know… uh… maybe it’s a ghost from this old Indian cemetery and it’s upset ’cause we’re here.”

  “For god’s sake, Richard, you didn’t hafta say that!”

  Heck, I had a little chill go up my back, and I felt the hair on the back of my neck stand straight up.

  We stood there for a couple of minutes, then all of a sudden the drum stopped and it was just so quiet you could hear your heart beating.

  It was right at that very moment that I started hearing something. Maybe it was some old possum just nosing around, but whatever it was sure had our attention. Then the funniest feeling just swept over us. It felt like a cold wind had just made a whoosh and with it came some fog.