Snopes: The Hamlet, The Town, The Mansion

“I’m going up the bottom tomorrow and get Uncle Dick Bolivar,” Ratliff said. “I ought to get back here a little after dark. But then we cant do anything here until after midnight, after Flem has done got through hunting it.”

“And finding it tomorrow night,” Armstid said. “By God, I aint—”They were all standing now. Armstid began to struggle, sudden and furious, to free his arm. But Ratliff held him. He flung both arms around Armstid and held him until he stopped struggling.

“Listen,” Ratliff said. “Flem Snopes aint going to find it. If he knowed where to look, do you think he’d a been here digging for it every night for two weeks? Dont you know folks have been looking for that money for thirty years? That every foot of this whole place has been turned over at least ten times? That there aint a piece of land in this whole country that’s been worked as much and as often as this here little shirttail of garden? Will Varner could have raised cotton or corn either in it so tall he would have to gather it on horseback just by putting the seed in the ground. The reason aint nobody found it yet is it’s buried so deep aint nobody had time to dig that far in just one night and then get the hole filled back up where Will Varner wouldn’t find it when he got out here at daylight to sit in that flour-barrel chair and watch. No sir. There aint but one thing in this world can keep us from finding it.” Armstid had ceased. He and Bookwright both looked toward Ratliff’s indistinguishable face. After a while Armstid said harshly:

“And what’s that?”

“That’s for Flem Snopes to find out somebody else is hunting for it,” Ratliff said.

It was about midnight the next night when Ratliff turned his buckboard into the cedars again. Bookwright now rode his horse, because there were already three people in the buckboard, and again Armstid did not wait for Ratliff to tie the team. He was out as soon as the buckboard stopped; he dragged a shovel dashing and clanging out of the dog-kennel box, making no effort whatever to be quiet, and was gone limping terrifically into the darkness before Ratliff and Bookwright were on the ground. “We might as well go back home,” Bookwright said.

“No, no,” Ratliff said. “He aint never there this late. But we better catch up with Henry anyway.” The third man in the buckboard had not moved yet. Even in the obscurity his long white beard had a faintly luminous quality, as if it had absorbed something of the starlight through which Ratliff had fetched him and were now giving it back to the dark. Ratliff and Bookwright helped him, groping and fumbling, out of the buckboard, and carrying the other shovel and the pick and half-carrying the old man, they hurried down into the ravine and then ran, trying to overtake the sound of Armstid’s limping progress. They never overtook him. They climbed up out of the ditch, carrying the old man bodily now, and even before they reached the foot of the arden they could hear the sound of Armstid’s rapid shovel up the slope. They released the old man, who sank to the ground between them, breathing in reedy gasps, and as one Ratliff and Bookwright glared up the dark slope toward the hushed furious sound of the shovel. “We got to make him stop until Uncle Dick can find it,” Ratliff said. They ran toward the sound, shoulder to shoulder in the stumbling dark, among the rank weeds. “Here, Henry!” Ratliff whispered. “Wait for Uncle Dick.” Armstid didn’t pause, digging furiously, flinging the dirt and thrusting the shovel again all in one motion. Ratliff grasped at the shovel. Armstid jerked it free and whirled, the shovel raised like an axe, their faces invisible to one another, strained, spent. Ratliff had not had his clothes off in three nights, but Armstid had probably been in his for the whole two weeks.

“Touch it!” Armstid whispered. “Touch it!”

“Wait now,” Ratliff said. “Give Uncle Dick a chance to find where it’s at.”

“Get away,” Armstid said. “I warn you. Get outen my hole.” He resumed his furious digging. Ratliff watched him for a second.

“Come on,” he said. He turned, running, Bookwright behind him. The old man was sitting up when they reached him. Ratliff plunged down beside him and began to scrabble among the weeds for the other shovel. It was the pick he found first. He flung it away and plunged down again; he and Bookwright found the shovel at the same time. Then they were standing, struggling for the shovel, snatching and jerking at it, their breathing harsh and repressed, hearing even above their own breathing the rapid sound of Armstid’s shovel up the slope. “Leave go!” Ratliff whispered. “Leave go!” The old man, unaided now, was struggling to get up.

“Wait,” he said. “Wait.” Then Ratliff seemed to realise what he was doing. He released the shovel; he almost hurled it at Bookwright.