“She sure is a pile of money, ain’t she?” he said.
It was time to get rid of him. I ground out the cigarette and nodded. “All right. You can put the lid back on. We’d better get going.”
The steep-sided hole they had come from was just behind me and slightly to the right. He was bent over the pail, pressing down the lid. I shot a quick glance behind me and stood up. I stepped backward and when I felt the edge of the hole under my foot I let it slide on in.
“Damn ... !” I cursed explosively, waved my arms, and fell. My shoulder hit the log and I rolled off it to the ground.
He sprang over and knelt beside me. “Hey, Mr. Ward. Are you okay?”
I pushed myself to my hands and knees. “I’m all right,” I said. “I just forgot about that damned hole.”
“Here. Let me help you up.” He took hold of my arm.
I tried to stand. The moment I put my right foot on the ground I sucked my breath in sharply and collapsed. Drawing a sleeve across my face to wipe off the sweat and dirt, I said shakily, “It’s my ankle. Wait a minute.”
He watched as I unlaced my shoe. I grimaced realistically as I pulled it off and felt the ankle and foot. “It’s hot,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s broken. Probably just a bad sprain.”
“You think you can walk on it?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Wait till I get my breath and I’ll try again.”
I did, and gave an even better performance. “No use,” I said.
“Mebbe I could cut you something for a crutch.”
“Not with that knife? it’d have to be something pretty heavy. It’ll have to be bandaged, too.” I moved the foot slightly and said, “Whew!”
“Well...” he said hesitantly, “I’ve got a roll of bandage stuff at the cabin. And some tape.”
I considered it, looking doubtful “I don’t know. . . .”
“Mebbe we could tear up our shirts and make a bandage.”
“It’ll take a longer strip,” I told him. “Regular roll bandage, or a torn-up sheet. And I’ll still have to have a crutch.”
“I don’t see no other way,” he said. “I’ll just have to go to the cabin. I got an axe there, and I could cut a sapling with a fork, and pad it at the top. I’ll bring a sheet, and some liniment.”
I frowned. “You re under arrest, on a serious charge. I’m not supposed to let you out of my sight.”
“I can t think of nothing else,” he said.
“You wouldn’t try to escape?”
“No, sir.”
“Well, all right,” I said doubtfully. “I guess you couldn’t get far, anyway, with no car.”
That was pretty crude, but in dealing with a low grade mentality subtlety could be dangerous. He might miss it.
“Well, you’d better hurry along,” I went on, before he could say anything. “It’ll be dark in another hour or two.”
“Sure,” he said. He went off through the timber in the direction we had come, walking quite fast now.
As soon as he was out of sight I grinned and got up. I sat on the log and lit a cigarette. The thing to do was give him plenty of time; it didn’t matter when I got out of here. He’d have to take to his feet after the car quit on him somewhere this side of the highway, and it would be most embarrassing for both of us if I refueled it and got out on the road before he’d managed to thumb a ride. He might even take time to pack a lot of his gear, in fact, since he’d know I couldn’t crawl back to the camp-ground before sometime tomorrow even if I knew the way. And even then I wouldn’t get out of the bottom until they sent a search party after me.
I smoked the cigarette all the way out to the end before I made any move to open the other two pails, extracting in full measure the joys of anticipation. There were too few moments like this in life, and when you’d used them up they were gone forever. I thought of what was inside the pails, and then appraised the craftsmanship of the operation itself. Not bad, I thought. Of course, I’d had a lot of luck at the beginning, but the solution of the problem itself, after it was posed, was a creditable bit of work. It was a minor masterpiece, if I did say so.
Come on, hammy, I thought; quit milking the curtain calls and get to work. Grinding out the cigarette, I knelt and took out my knife. In a moment I had all three of them open. It was like dreaming you owned Fort Knox and then waking up to find the deed and the keys in your hand. The other two were exactly like the first, crammed full of currency in every denomination from five to a hundred. I hurriedly slipped off my shirt, spread it on the ground, and began piling the money on it, not trying to count it but searching for that I was going to have to destroy. When I came to a package that had that crisp, new look about it I’d toss it to one side. In a few minutes I had it all sorted out. Of course, I’d have to go over it more carefully later on, but I should have most of it. There were four more sheafs of those new twenties, six tens, and two in the fifty-dollar denomination.
Just to be sure, I picked up each one individually and riffled through it to make certain the serial numbers ran consecutively. They all did. I performed a quick calculation, using the sums printed on the bands. The twelve packages added up to twelve thousand dollars, which was an odd coincidence, I reflected, since they varied individually between $500 and $2,500 depending on denomination. I looked at the little stack of it. Twelve thousand dollars! All right, hero, I thought, you said you could; let’s see you do it. Don’t stall around long enough to begin to wonder if maybe it wouldn’t be safe ten years from now. It’ll never be safe as long as you live, and the world’s not big enough to find a place you could spend it. There are people who buy it, sure. But then somebody knows. The way it is now, nobody does, or ever will. Keep it that way. Do it right.
Tossing all twelve of them over beside the hole, I began breaking the bands and crumpling bills into the bottom of it. When I had a neat pile of them I stuck the flame of the lighter against the corner of a fifty and shoved it in. They began to burn, flaming up nicely. I went on breaking open the bands and dropping money on the blaze, not enough at a time to smother it or cause it to flare too high. I remembered the other time, at the edge of the lake, and reflected that if you did enough of this to become an addict it could be a damned expensive habit. When it all was reduced to ashes I picked up a stick and crushed them to dust. I shoved in a little earth and stirred it about, mixing it. Then, taking the shovel, I caved the hole in all around, smoothing it out, and wound up by spreading the old dead leaves back over the whole thing. Boys, I thought, your trail is cold forever.
I was about to turn back to the other when I stopped, listening intently. It had sounded like an outboard motor starting, a long way off. I grinned. He could get down to the camp-ground faster that way, all right, and carry his luggage with less trouble. I held my breath and listened again, but I couldn’t be sure whether I still heard it or not. A mile was too far, and he was going the other way. Bon voyage, Walter. I deem it a great honor to have touched your gentle spirit, however briefly, and may the pastures be forever green.
Well, they were green enough, I thought. He had that $3,800 I’d given him, and while this didn’t run to such items of baronial splendor as coconut farms, it would last him the rest of his life. That overseer would probably have shot him, anyway.
I knelt beside the money on the shirt and began putting it back into the pails. In a moment I was struck by the bizarre fact that while it was a streak of rust on a twenty-dollar bill that had started me theorizing in the first place and had eventually led to the correct solution in this thing, the present pails were shiny and clean inside. He had changed them a few months ago. Some of the money was badly streaked with the old stains, but getting them off would present no great problem. A few minutes’ research in any library would produce the answer. Then I grinned. I could even write Good Housekeeping.