Mom would believe him but would keep on worrying a little. And before they went to bed, Dad would maybe quote a verse from one of the psalms out of the Bible, and one or the other of them would pray out loud and name me by name.
Then they’d go in the house and stop in the moonlight that would be coming through the bedroom window and look down at my baby sister, Charlotte Ann, in her baby bed. And Dad would maybe give Mom a hug and say, “They’re great kids—Bill and Charlotte Ann,” as I’d overheard them say a hundred times. And Mom would maybe say, “Yes, but Bill—he’s so impulsive, you know. He runs into all sorts of danger.” I’d heard her say that maybe two hundred times.
That was as far as I got to think right then, because Poetry, who had hold of my arm, squeezed it so hard I almost yelled. My thoughts came quick from Sugar Creek, where they didn’t have any business being at that dangerous minute, as Poetry whispered to all of us, “Who in the world would be sawing a board or something out here at night?”
Then the sawing stopped, and a hammer began to pound. And I knew it was a hammer driving in a nail.
I peered as hard as I could through the moonlight but couldn’t see anybody.
Poetry surprised me by saying, “Let’s go see who it is and what he is doing.”
What? I thought. I certainly didn’t have any intention of doing anything of the sort—not on your life. I said so.
“Then I’ll have to go alone,” Poetry said, and his husky whisper sounded fiercely brave.
Dragonfly whispered, “Somebody’s got to s–s–stay h–h–here and stop the st–st–station w–w–w–wagon wh–wh–when it c–c–comes.”
I could hear his teeth chattering with fright, and I quick shut my teeth tighter together so that nobody could hear mine, which had started doing the same thing.
Well, I don’t know how we ever decided to do what we did, but we did. Dragonfly was too scared to go out to see what was going on, so Circus agreed to stay with him while Poetry and I sneaked around behind the pine tree to see what we could see. And you couldn’t believe your eyes unless you’d seen it yourself, but as soon as we got to where we could see, there it was.
Poetry and I didn’t dare whisper to each other about what we saw until we heard the pounding again. Then we went a little farther into the shadows and crawled along on our stomachs till we were closer. When I saw what was going on, I gasped with surprise, and Poetry did the same thing.
He whispered to me his absolute astonishment, and this is what his hot breath in my ear said: “It’s an Indian building a new grave house. Some Indian maybe has died!”
I knew right away that Poetry was right, because there was a brand-new grave house, made of nice new boards and nearly finished. The Indian had a gasoline lantern sitting on the ground beside him.
“See!” Poetry’s warm breath hissed into my ear again. “There’s a shovel too. He’s been digging the grave—no, it’s already dug!”
It looked as if Poetry was right again. I felt very sorry for the Indian. I noticed, even in the gasoline lantern light, that he had a very bronze face and hands and that his jacket was like what I’d seen other Indians up there wear.
Just that second he straightened up and listened, and for a minute I thought he had a frightened look on his face. He glanced all around in different directions and, at just the wrong time, in our direction. For I suddenly lost my balance, and, in spite of everything I could do, I tumbled over on my side from behind the grave house where we’d been hiding.
The Indian held up the lantern and flashed it on me, right ker-smack into my face.
I don’t know what I expected to happen right that second, but I knew that—if I’d been standing—I’d have been wobbly in the knees.
The tall Indian let out a moan as though he was in pain and said, “White boy, don’t be afraid. I build spirit house for papoose. We bury papoose tomorrow.”
His voice sounded afraid and very sad at the same time.
“White boys go away. Leave Indian father alone with sorrow!” he said when he saw Poetry too.
Well, that was that—a very crazy that—but it made sense when we saw the hammer and saw and shovel and the pile of new earth and the little grave house nearly finished.
So Poetry and I scrambled awkwardly to our feet and started to leave. It was what Poetry started to do next that surprised me.
First, he said, “We are sorry, Mr. Indian, very sorry! We will go now.”
But instead of going back toward the road, Poetry turned and started walking through the center of the cemetery. He had the flashlight and used it a few times, although here the moonlight was so bright that we didn’t need it.
I noticed, though, that he was working his way over to the side next to the lake. Once he shot the light beam down toward the water real quick and then turned it off just as quick. Then he started doing the craziest thing, and it was then that I noticed that he’d brought his fishing pole along with him.
“What on earth!” I said to him.
“Sh! I’m going to dry out my line. Keep still!”
Poetry fastened the big fishhook that was on the end of his leader to the limb of a sapling down about two feet above the ground. Then he adjusted the ratchet control of his reel so the line would unwind quietly, and we walked along, unwinding his new nylon line as we went. It was the most ridiculous thing I’d ever heard of.
Poor Indian daddy, I thought. What if it was my father whose little Charlotte Ann had died, and he had had to dig the grave himself and get ready to bury her?
A very sad feeling welled up in my throat, right beside the half-disgusted feeling I had toward Poetry for wanting to dry out his new nylon line at such a ridiculous time of night and in such a ridiculous place. Why, it wouldn’t even get time to dry before the rest of the gang would be here in the station wagon. What on earth! I kept on thinking.
It certainly was a terribly long line, I thought, remembering that it had completely filled his big reel.
He let it unwind all the way back to where Circus and Dragonfly were waiting for us. When we got there, we stopped, and Poetry started back again, this time walking very fast, still unwinding as he went, leaving me to tell what we’d seen, which I started to do in an excited whisper.
“Wh–wh–wh–what’s Poetry doing?” Dragonfly managed to stammer out.
I said, “He’s going to dry out his line to keep it from rotting.”
We could see Poetry moving along in and out of the shadows out there on the lake side of the cemetery. Then he would walk around in the cemetery, hurrying from one grave house to another and back again.
Then he came toward us fast and said, “There! I guess that’ll tangle him up. If he tries to make a dive for the opening that goes down to the lake to his boat, he’ll stumble on my line. And with all of us running wildly after him, he’ll tumble head over heels down the hill, and we’ll all land on top of him and catch him and tie him up and phone the police to come and get him.”
“But he—he’s an Indian!” I said. “He’s digging a grave for his baby! He—”
“Sh—sh!” Poetry said when my whisper seemed too loud to him. “That’s the same guy that was walking around out there this afternoon! The same one that bought the gasoline at the minnow place. And his boat is down there at the foot of the hill waiting for him to finish burying the ransom money where nobody in the world would ever think of looking for it.”
“You’re crazy!” I said to Poetry, maybe partly because I hadn’t thought of it myself first, and wishing I had. Still, it didn’t seem possible.
“He had brownish skin,” I objected, “and he’s got to be an Indian.”
“He also had a brownish tackle box right behind him on the ground,” Poetry said. “The same one he had this afternoon. He’s probably got the money in that.”
Well, it certainly was a tangled-up surprise. I wished like everything that Barry and Big Jim and the rest would hurry up and come quick, so we could maybe walk right out ther
e with Barry’s rifle and capture the kidnapper ourselves, if it really was him. Boy oh boy!
I was wondering, too, where the police were. Barry had phoned them from the fire warden’s house a long time ago, and police are always on the job. There isn’t a crook in the land that can keep on being a crook and not get caught sooner or later.
All of a mysterious sudden, I heard somebody’s footsteps plodding along the sand road, coming from the direction we’d been expecting the station wagon. I shoved myself back into the shadows, hissing for Dragonfly, Circus, and Poetry to do the same thing, which they did.
Strange things were really going on around here tonight, I thought, when I saw that whoever this was was swinging something in his hand that looked like a basket or a pail.
It was Dragonfly who recognized who it was. “It’s Big Jim!”
We hissed to him.
He stopped as though he’d been shot at, and when he found out it was us, he sneaked over into the shadows where we were.
“We ran out of gas back there, about halfway between here and the fire warden’s cabin—” Big Jim started to say.
“B–but we just had the tank filled yesterday,” Dragonfly said, and I remembered that we had, just before we’d driven into camp.
“I’ll bet some gasoline thief must have siphoned it out while we were fishing,” Circus said.
Well, it wasn’t any time to try to figure out what had happened and why. It only took us a jiffy and a half to find out that Barry had stayed in the station wagon with Little Tom Till and Little Jim and had sent Big Jim back to the fire warden’s house for gasoline. But there wasn’t anybody at home. So Barry then had sent Big Jim on to the bridge, where we were supposed to be waiting, to tell us we’d have to walk partway home.
“What you carrying the can for, then?” Poetry wanted to know.
Big Jim said he thought maybe he’d be able to borrow some gas from some of the people who were fishing on the bridge, if any of them who had cars were still there. Or maybe some of the fishermen in boats might let him have a little, just enough to drive to town.
“I know where there is some—real close,” Poetry whispered.
We quickly told Big Jim what we knew was going on in the cemetery and that there was maybe a whole five-gallon can of gasoline down there in the kidnapper’s boat!
“That gasoline hasn’t any business being in that boat,” Big Jim said. His voice had the good old Big Jim ring of authority in it, which always made me feel good whenever we needed somebody to take charge of us.
I felt braver right away, because even though Poetry was maybe sometimes even braver than Big Jim, Poetry’s bravery didn’t have as much good sense mixed up with it. Besides, in a fight Poetry’s fists couldn’t sock half as hard as Big Jim’s could.
We knew what we were going to do. We were going to sneak around the cemetery and down to the boat and set the five-gallon can of gas out in the bushes somewhere. We would also open the filler cap of the kidnapper’s motor, and—if we could get the motor turned upside down—we would let all the gasoline in the tank spill out into the lake.
“But we ought to tell the police,” I said to Big Jim, remembering what we’d heard on the radio that afternoon.
“Don’t worry about the police,” Big Jim said. “They know plenty, and they’re on the job somewhere. Besides, we haven’t any time now to get to a telephone. Hurry, before he gets his papoose’s grave finished!”
9
Well, we were in for it—another whirlwind experience. And when I realized I was going to be right in the middle of it, with Big Jim as our leader to tell us what to do and what not to do—and with Circus with us, who was almost as strong as Big Jim—I felt wonderful inside.
We had to go closer to the Indian-looking man with the gasoline lantern and shovel, and we must have made more noise than we thought.
Anyway, he must have gotten scared, and suddenly Poetry gasped, “There he goes! He’s making a dash to get to the boat before we do!”
It looked as if Poetry was right. I could see, as all of us stumbled along together and dodged through brush and trees to get to the boat ahead of the man, that he had grabbed up his lantern in one hand and his tackle box in the other. He was running through the cemetery, dodging the grave houses, and beating it for the edge of the hill that would lead down to his boat.
If he got there first, he’d shove off, start his powerful motor, and go roarety-sizzle out onto the lake. It’d be like looking for a needle in a haystack to try to find him unless you had a still faster motorboat. And even then, there’d maybe be a lot of other boats on the lake. And the Mississippi ran through most of the lakes, from one to another. Well, nobody’d find him tonight, anyway.
I didn’t have time to think what would happen if something else happened, though. Right there in front of my eyes, I saw that dark form out there in the cemetery make a head-over-heels somersault. His gasoline lantern swung in a wide arc of white light and went ker-wham into the top of a grave house. There was an explosion and a blinding flash that was as bright as a terribly powerful photographer’s flashbulb. And the next thing I knew there was a big ragged circle of fire in the middle of that cemetery.
“He’s stumbled over my line!” Poetry said.
The guy must not have gotten hurt, because he rolled over and up onto his feet and dashed awkwardly for the brow of the hill and started down. There he must have struck some more of Poetry’s line, for I heard him let out a string of swear words that didn’t sound much like an Indian who couldn’t talk plain English. And then he disappeared down the hillside.
“We’ve got to catch him!” Big Jim said. “Come on!”
All five of us broke out into the open and, like a football eleven, dashed wildly after him, being able to see better now in the light of the flames that were leaping up all around one of the grave houses.
At the top of the hill, I saw the kidnapper, halfway down, unscrambling himself from what was probably a tangled-up somersault. He was on his feet again and starting on when he let out a terrible yell as though he’d gotten hurt in some way. He started swearing again like a cemetery afire, and it sounded as if he was not only hurt but was terribly mad at something or somebody.
One of us had a flashlight focused on him. He was sitting up with Poetry’s fishing line in both hands and was pulling and straining to try to break it because he was tangled up in it. Even in the fleeting flash of the flashlight I saw that Poetry’s hook was caught in the man’s trouser leg. Maybe that was the reason he had yelled bloody murder a while ago—that hook probably was caught in his leg as well as in his trousers.
Poetry was just dumb enough and also mischievous enough to yell, “Look, you guys! I’ve got a big fish on my line!”
“All right!” Big Jim barked savagely. “Up with your hands! Quick!”
I guess I never had heard Big Jim’s voice sound so fierce as it did right that minute. It sounded like a terribly authoritative policeman’s voice.
The man gave a final fierce tug with both hands on that unbreakable nylon line. Then he shoved one hand into his pocket for something, which I guessed was a knife to cut the line.
Behind us, the light from the leaping flames was getting brighter, and I knew we’d have to get that fire put out or we’d maybe have a whole forest fire. There hadn’t been any rain up here for a long time.
But we couldn’t afford to run any risk of what that guy might be going to pull out of his pocket, because it might be a gun. Quick as a flash, one of our gang, which I found out later was Circus, made a flying leap from beside me somewhere, like a fierce tiger leaping on an enemy wild animal. He crashed against that guy and bowled him over and scrambled on top of him, and nearly all the rest of us dived in to help.
The next thing I knew I had a bulldog hold on one of his legs, and no matter which way it moved or dragged me, I fiercely held on, feeling myself getting kicked in the chest and chin but holding on for dear life. I could hear myself grunting and feel
myself happily mad and awfully glad to be in that kind of fight.
I knew that we were going to win and would pretty soon have the kidnapper under control. He’d have to go to jail, which wouldn’t be even half enough punishment for anybody who would kidnap an innocent little girl, and scare her half to death, and do the same thing to her parents and all the people who had lived in their neighborhood back in St. Paul.
Even while I, with all the rest of the gang helping me, was capturing the big fierce man, there came into my mind a Bible verse that says, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay.” It sort of seemed that the Sugar Creek Gang was actually helping God catch a man who needed to be punished for his sins, and I was proud to be on God’s side. In fact, there isn’t any other side in all the world that’s worth being on.
In less than several jiffies of grunting and straining and rolling around on that hillside, we had our man under control. Poetry’s nylon line with the fishing hook stuck in the man’s leg helped us to do it. While some of us held him down, Circus dived for the boat and with his knife cut off enough of the anchor rope to tie him up.
Then Big Jim said, “All right, gang. Off with your shirts! Soak them in the lake and get up there quick and put out that fire!” which we started to do in an awfully quick hurry.
“Hey!” Circus, who got to the lake first, yelled. “There’s a fire extinguisher in the boat!”
Well, I won’t have time to tell you about how we fought and put out that fire with our sopping-wet shirts, all of us working like mad until the last spark was out and there was only a lot of smoky moonlight, like bluish-gray fog, over that old Indian cemetery.
Sugar Creek Gang Set Books 13-18 Page 6