I thought, How does Terri know this stuff? Or does she just sound like she knows?
“I got me a tow sack of goods I bought with some of that money I had, made my way to her house, and hid out in the woods across the road from her place. I lived off canned beans and beer for two or three days, sleeping on the dirt like a damn dog, getting eat up by chiggers and ticks, but he didn’t come by. I didn’t know where he was staying, but it wasn’t with her. I was out of beer and on my last can of beans and was about to call in the dogs on my plans when I seen him pull up in front of her house. He got out of his car, and, let me tell you, he looked rough, like he’d been living under someone’s porch. He went inside the house, and I hid in the back floorboard of his car. When he come out and drove off, I leaped up behind him and put my knife to his throat, which was all I had, having lost my gun in a craps game on the way back to Oklahoma. I had some good adventures along the way. If you two are alive later, I’ll tell you about them.”
Considering Johnson was telling us everything but what kind of hair oil he used, I figured he wouldn’t want us around later. We knew too much.
“So there I was with my knife to his throat, and you know what he did?”
“How would we?” Terri said.
“He drove that car into a tree. I mean hard. It knocked me winded, and the next thing I know I’m crawling out through the back where the rear windshield busted out, and then I’m falling on the ground. I realize I’m still holding the knife. When I got up, there was Smat, just wandering around like a chicken with its head cut off. I yelled at him about the money, and he just looked at me and seemed drunk as a skunk, which I know he ain’t. I say, ‘Smat. You tell me where that money is, or I’m going to cut you a place to leak out of.’ He says to me, ‘I ain’t got no mice.’”
“Mice?” Terri said.
“I’m sure that’s what he said. Anyway, I got mad and stabbed him. I’m what my mama used to call real goddamn impulsive. Next thing we’re struggling around, and he falls, and I fall, and I bang my head on the side of the car, and when I wake up I’m on my back looking at stars. I got up and seen Smat had done took off. So I went looking for him high and low, thinking I’d got a good knife thrust or two on him, and he’d be dead thereabouts. But he wasn’t. So I went wandering around for a few days, thumbed a ride back to Texas, knowing Smat knew a fellow just over the river. But Smat wasn’t there. I cut that guy good to find out if he knew anything about where Smat was, but I killed him for nothing. He didn’t know shit. I went wandering for a couple more days, and then I seen you two at that station. Ain’t that something? Ain’t life funny?”
“Makes me laugh,” Terri said.
“I wandered a couple more days, finally caught a ride from a farmer and was dropped off at the Red River bridge, and when I got to the other side, what do I see but your car and this little fart outside of it, and I think, Where’s that boy? He’s gonna drive me. Then I seen the map on the seat and knew you knew Smat and knew he hadn’t mailed any map at all, ’cause there was the same one he’d drawn. I figured you knew where he was, that he’d been in your car, and then the rest of it you can put together.”
Before Terri could say anything, I said, “He ain’t alive no more, but before he died he said he done that map to trick you so you’d think he was letting go of the loot, but he came back for it. He moved it, all right, but it’s still in the same place, buried right behind Geronimo’s grave. You missed it.”
He studied me a moment to see if there was truth in what I said, and he saw truth where there wasn’t any, which goes to prove if I want to lie, I can do it. So we got our bearings and headed out in the direction of Geronimo’s grave after stopping at a station for gas and at a general store across the street from it to buy a shovel and some rope. Johnson gave me some money and I went in and bought the goods. Johnson sat in the backseat with Terri to make sure I didn’t talk to anyone at the station or the store. He kept the knife close to her.
At the store I was supposed to ask how far it was to Fort Sill, where Geronimo was buried, and I did. When I told Johnson how far it was, he figured we could drive through the night and be there early morning, before or just about the time the sun came up.
It started raining that afternoon, and it was a steady rain, but we drove on, the wipers beating at the water on the windshield.
Johnson said, “Every time it rains, someone says, ‘The farmers need it.’ I don’t give a hang about the farmers. Papa raised hogs and chickens and grew corn and such, and he spent a lot of time beating my ass with a plow line. To hell with the farmers and their rain. I hope their lands blow away. I can eat pork or beef or chicken or a squirrel. I don’t care about the farmers. The farmers can go to hell.”