Free The Magic Wagon by Joe R. Lansdale Page B

"that ain't white."
    "This old Indian made him a box out of some sacred trees, and he put that body in it. He figured the spirits in the trees would keep Hickok's dead spirit from getting out and doing something to him. Hickok was so good with them pistols of his, lot of folks, especially Indians, thought he had some magic in him, or in them guns. That box was the Indian's way of holding that magic back, get me?"
    "I get you, but you still ain't told me where the body is."
    "This old Indian liked to open the box up a couple times a day, lift up his breechcloth and expose himself to old Bill's Corpse."
    "That's disgusting," Billy Bob said.
    "Showing your privates like that is a kind of Indian joke. An insult."
    "All right, enough about the damned savages and their jokes, where is this old Indian that has the body?"
    "The old Indian don't have it no more."
    Billy Bob was starting to fidget, and I thought any minute he was going to jerk out that pistol and start beating Nose Picker about the head and ears with it, which would have been all right with me. I could see this was leading to no good, and I was cold and wet and getting wetter. Albert was leaning against the wagon, watching and listening. He didn't look any happier than I felt.
    "I swear you are the windiest gas bag I ever did see. If he ain't with the old Indian, then where is he?"
    "With the old Indian's son. He's a medicine man too. You see, the old man died and the young fella sort of inherited Wild Bill. He's been living back East getting him a white education, but he had to come back on account of he got caught cheating somebody in Yankee land. He has the body now and wants to sell it, get him some seed money. Get out of the cave he's living in. Maybe go back East when things cool down on what he done."
    "And what's your cut in all this, Checkers?" Billy Bob asked.
    Checkers smiled. I wished he hadn't. I didn't like them teeth. "Finder's fee. Indian said he'd give me a cut of the money, and then there's just the plain, simple fact that I'd like to see a family brought back together again, even if one of them is dead."
    "That's right touching of you," Billy Bob said.
    "Always did have me a sentimental streak. It's a kind of sweetness that runs through me. You interested or not?"
    "I'm interested. And Checkers?"
    "Yeah?"
    "You wouldn't lie to an ole Southern boy, would you?"
    "No. I wouldn't. I'm partial to Southern boys, actually."
    "I hope you are. How much this Indian wanting for the body, provided I see it and want it?"
    "Twenty dollars."
    "Twenty dollars!"
    "That's right. And twenty for me taking you to it."
    "Hell, man, ain't nobody got no forty dollars to be giving away."
    "Well now, I figure since he's your pa, you'll want the body. And another thing, maybe an even more important thing, is you have that body and you're going to make a ton ofmoney. I mean, you can't kid Checkers. You carry that old boy around with you and it's going to sell more of that watered-down liquor you call Cure-All. And that's going to make you lots of money, I know."
    "When do I see the body?" Billy Bob asked.
    "Has to be tonight."
    "That's a mite hasty, ain't it, considering the weather?"
    "I'm leaving the Hills tomorrow. Don't know if I'm coming back. Hell, for all I know, that Indian might have already cut loose of it. He was big to sell."
    So there we were, it pitch black and raining bad enough to strangle a duck, and Billy Bob wanted to go into the Black Hills with a total stranger who couldn't stop picking his nose, and look at a rotting body in a box. A body that might, or might not be, Wild Bill Hickok. Then he'd probably buy that rascal with the wages he owed me and Albert.
    Billy Bob put the wagon in storage, put our old mules in the livery, and rented us some horses, including one for Chauncey, and one mule for carrying the box out should he Buy it, which seemed like a foregone conclusion to me. Provided there was a body in a box.
    We put Rot Toe over to one of the