“Sort of,” Jasper answered, “Sometimes it makes low spots lower, digging a little furrow into a big trench. Sometimes part of a wall crumbles away and leaves a new tower or chimney that wasn’t there before. The only thing you can be sure of is that dirt is going to move around. After a rain like this one, some spots get buried in sand and clay, and some spots get unburied. No rhyme or reason to it, as far as I can make out.”
Aidan pointed up at a pine tree on the very edge of the canyon. It was the one he had noticed when he first came here, with its roots reaching out into the air. “I remember that tree,” he said. “It used to have a neighbor. Do you remember? It hung upside down by the roots, just a few feet from that tree.”
“It’s gone now,” Jasper observed. “The storm must have been too much for it.”
“Wonder where it is now,” said Aidan. “Maybe floating down the Eechihoolee by now, on its way to the ocean.”
“Or it might be out here somewhere. Likely it’s buried in the sand,” said Jasper.
Aidan walked toward the canyon wall where the tree had hung, curious to see if it was on the canyon floor. He saw no sign of the tree, but he did see something else that caught his eye. “Hey, Jasper,” he called. “Come over here. What does this look like to you?”
Jasper knelt beside him in the wet sand and examined the flat, brittle piece of wood Aidan handed him. It was a little bigger than a man’s hand. A whole row of identical pieces peeked out of the sand like a row of teeth.
“It looks like a shingle to me,” Jasper said.
“That’s what I thought,” Aidan agreed. From his side pouch he pulled out a flat digging rock, a leftover from his Feechiefen days, and began digging around the shingles. They were attached to a wide plank, a piece of roof decking, no doubt. There was a second row of shingles nailed just below the first.
“Do you suppose a piece of roof from an old barn washed down here from a nearby farm?” Aidan asked.
Jasper gazed up at the canyon rim. “The nearest farm I know of is almost ten leagues away. That was a powerful storm, but I don’t see how surface water-or really anything less than a river-could carry something this big for ten leagues.” He thought on it a little more. “And besides, when was the last time you saw a shingled roof in this part of Corenwald? All the roofs around here are reed thatch or palmetto thatch.”
“You’re right,” Aidan said. “This is like a roof you might see in the Hill Country.”
“Or the old country.” Jasper’s brow crinkled. “So how did it get here?”
Aidan dug again with his rock. But even in the wet sand he couldn’t make enough progress to suit Jasper, who was growing more perplexed and more excited about their discovery. “I’m going to get the miners,” he announced. “They’ll have it dug out in no time.”
An hour’s digging by the miners produced impressive results. They dug out the decking plank within ten minutes of arriving on the scene. Then they found two more shingled planks and a pair of massive roof timbers, almost as big as squared-off trees.
Except for those on sentry duty, every man in the camp came to watch the digging and debate about the findings. Everyone agreed the planks and timbers hadn’t been washed down by the flood of two days earlier. They were buried too deeply for that. This flood must have just washed away the sand that had buried the planks and timbers many years earlier. But that didn’t explain how they got there in the first place.
One of the soldiers proposed that pirates or criminals had built a house in the canyon for a hideout and a flood had destroyed it. But in a canyon full of natural hideouts, it seemed unlikely that anyone would actually build a house to hide in.
Someone else suggested that the house may have overhung the canyon at one time and fallen into the canyon just as the pine tree had fallen during the storm. But again, who would be fool enough to build a house overlooking Sinking Canyons? The place got its very name from the rim constantly sinking down to the canyon floor.
While the debate continued, the miners continued digging. Soon they made another discovery. Digging out the deeper end of one of the roof timbers, Clayton’s shovel clanged against something metal. Soon he had uncovered a thickly corroded plate of curved iron. The field hands were the first to recognize it as a plow blade.
“Oh, Mama,” Dobro moaned. “Oh, Mama, if you only knew what your boy been messing up with!”
Everyone stopped to stare at the feechie, who wrung his hands in genuine distress.
“What is the matter with you, Dobro?” Aidan asked.
Dobro was breathing fast, trying to regain his composure. “Ain’t but three things my mama especially tolt me was bad luck to mess up with-three things ain’t no feechie supposed to mess up with-and here I am messing up with all three at the same time.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” asked Arliss.
Dobro held up his index finger. “One, civilizers. I don’t mean to hurt nobody’s feelings, but you folks is bad luck.” He held up two fingers. “Two, Sinking Canyons. Feechiefolks go wherever they want to go on this island, ’cept Sinking Canyons and places that got civilizers. Here I stand in the middle of Sinking Canyons with a crowd of civilizers. And now the next thing to turn up is the very worst luck in the round world: a cold-shiny plow!” He looked as if he might start crying. “Any cold-shiny’s bad luck for feechiefolks, of course, but a cold-shiny plow’s the worst bad luck of all.”
“What’s so awful about a cold-shiny plow?” Percy asked.
Dobro didn’t seem to have heard the question. But he closed his eyes and launched into a feechie sadballad: Oh, Veezo, you is ruint, Covered by the clay. With choppin’ and plowin’
You tore up the ground
And now it’s washed away.
Oh, Veezo, you is ruint,
Buried in the sand.
The world caved in,
And you and your kin
Was swallowed by the land.
Oh, Veezo, you is ruint,
And all your folks is gone.
They took to the bogs,
Now your horses and hogs
Got to make it on their own.
Oh, Veezo, you is ruint,
Underneath the ground.
Your cold-shiny’s rusted,
Your cabins is busted.
They’ll never more be found.
“It’s all right there in the feechie lore,” Dobro explained. “All about Veezo and his magical cold-shiny plow.” He wiped away a tear of self-pity. “In the old times, way before civilizers come to Corenwald, feechiefolks was farmers and villagers, just like you. And the biggest feechie farmer of them all was a feller named Veezo. And weren’t he a greedisome rascal! He farmed more land than any other man on the island, but his feelings was hurt because it weren’t enough for him.
“He was settin’ in his yard one evening with his lips pooched out when poof! A yard fairy turnt up.”
“A what?” Big Haze asked.
“A yard fairy-you know, the kind of fairy lives in folkses’ yards. And the yard fairy says ‘Veezo, how come your lips is pooched out?’
“Veezo says, ‘My feelin’s is hurt because I ain’t got enough land to plow. I plow all the land a man and a mule can plow, but it ain’t enough.’
“The fairy says, ‘I see. If you already plowing all the ground a man and a mule can plow, what you need is a magical cold-shiny plow.’ And poof! There one is, just as shiny and pretty a thing as Veezo ever seen. His eyes gets real big, account of he’s so greedisome.
“Then the fairy says, ‘Just don’t plow too long a furrow.’
“Veezo’s so wondrous he almost don’t hear the fairy’s warnin’, but finally he pulls his eyes off’n that cold-shiny plow long enough to ask, ‘How long is too long a furrow?’ But the fairy’s gone.
“Next day, Veezo commences to plowin’, and he plows the prettiest ankle-deep furrow long enough to grow corn for the whole neighborhood. He figures that must be long enough a furrow, and he ought to turn around, but then he figures he might want a punkin patch too. So he given his mule a swat, and on they go another piece. Veezo don’t even notice now that his magical cold-shiny plow’s cuttin’ a furrow knee-deep and two foot wide.