“If I’m reading you right, you don’t seem to like farmers,” Terri said.
“That’s funny,” Johnson said. “You’re gonna funny yourself to death.”
Johnson sat quiet after that and didn’t say another word until we came close to Fort Sill. Now, it’s supposed to be a fort and all that, but the graveyard wasn’t really protected at all. We parked up near it, Johnson grabbed the shovel and coiled the rope over his shoulder, and we all trudged into the graveyard, the rain beating down on us so hard we could barely see. We fumbled around in the dark awhile, but Johnson, having been there before, found Geronimo’s grave easy enough. A blind man could have found it. There was a monument there. It was made of cemented stones, and it was tall and thin at the top, wide at the bottom. There was a marker that said GERONIMO. On the grave itself were pieces of glass and bones and stones that folks had put there as some kind of tribute. The sun was rising and the rain had slackened, but we could see it had beat down the dirt at the back of the grave, behind the pile of rocks that served as Geronimo’s marker, and damn if we couldn’t see a tin box down in a hole there. The rain had opened the soft dirt up so you could see it clearly as the sun broke over the trees in the graveyard.
I thought, Uncle Smat, you ol’ dog, you. He had done exactly what I was pretending he did. The box really was there. Uncle Smat figured hiding it right near where it had been before would fool Johnson, and it would have, had I not told a lie that turned out to be the truth. Uncle Smat might actually have meant to mail that map but then he got stabbed, went off his bean, somehow ended up back at the chicken coop where he’d been staying, and died of the stabbing.
Johnson handed me the shovel, said, “Dig it the rest of the way out.”
“What happens to us then?”
“You drive me out of here. I can’t carry that on my back, and I can’t drive. Later, I tie you up with the rope somewhere where you can be found alongside the road.”
“What if no one comes along?” Terri said.
“That’s not my problem,” Johnson said.
I scraped some dirt off the box with the shovel, and then I got down in the hole to dig. Water ran over the tops of my shoes and soaked my socks and feet. I widened the hole and worked with the shovel until I pried the box loose from the mud. I slipped the rope under the box and fastened it around the top with a loop knot. I climbed out of the hole to help pull the box up. Me and Terri had to do the pulling. Johnson stood there with his big knife watching us.
When we got it up and out of the hole, he took the shovel from me, told us to stand back, and then used the tip of the shovel to try and force open the lid. This took some considerable work, and while he was at it, Terri stepped around beside Geronimo’s grave.
Johnson stopped and said to Terri, “Don’t think I ain’t watching you, girlie.”
Terri quit inching along.
Johnson got the box open and looked inside. I could see what the sunlight was shining on, same as him. A lot of greenbacks.
“Ain’t that fine-looking,” Johnson said.
“Hey, Johnson, you stack of shit,” Terri said.
Johnson jerked his head in her direction, and it was then I realized Terri had stooped down and got a rock, and she threw it. It was like the day she killed that bird. Her aim was true. It smote Johnson on the forehead, knocking off his hat, and he sort of went up on his toes and fell back, flat as a board, right by that hole we had just dug.
I looked down at Johnson. He had a big red welt on his forehead, and it was already starting to swell into a good-size knot.
“Girlie, my ass,” Terri said as she came up.
I bent down and took hold of his wrist but didn’t feel a pulse.
“Terri, I think you done killed him.”
“I was trying to. Did you hear the way it sounded when it hit him?”
“Like a gunshot,” I said.
“That’s for sure,” she said. “Let’s get this money.”
“What?”
“The money. Let’s get it and put it in the car and drive it home with us.”
“A million dollars? Show up at the house without Uncle Smat and with a large tin box full of money?”
“Here’s the way I see it,” Terri said. “Uncle Smat has left enough of himself in the car it ought to satisfy Mama that it was best we didn’t bring the rest of him home, his stink being more than enough. And this money might further soothe Mama’s disappointment about us not hauling him back.”
“We just pushed him in a sump hole and left him,” I said.
“Really want to go pick him up on the way home?”