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.
“He’s about to turn his mule around, but then he figures some watermelons might be just the thing. So he gives his mule another swat, and on they go another piece. He don’t notice that his magical cold-shiny plow is diggin’ a furrow shoulder high and ten foot across.
“Veezo was just about to turn that mule around when he got a hankerin’ for onions and decided he’d plow up a onion patch. He give his mule a swat and on they go. He didn’t know he was plowin’ right through his own yard because his furrow was deeper than his head and fifty foot wide! He just kept on plowin’, happy as a jaybird, and his cabin dropped into the furrow, then his barns dropped in the furrow, and finally the clay just tumbled in on top of Veezo and buried him and his magical cold-shiny plow too.
“And that’s why feechies is swamp folks, forest folks. Veezo’s neighbors seen what come of farmin’, and they takened to the woods where they could get their nourishment without cuttin’ furrows with no cold-shiny plow.”
Dobro looked solemnly at his hearers. “And the moral of the story is: Don’t go messin’ up with cold-shiny plows. ”
“I thought the moral was don’t go messin’ up with yard fairies,” Percy chimed in.
But Dobro paid him no mind.
“Hey, Dobro,” Percy teased, “you don’t suppose that’s Veezo’s cabin and magical plow we found, do you?”
Dobro looked thoughtfully into the hole the miners had dug. “I reckon that’s as good a explanation as anything you civilizers has come up with.”
Chapter Fourteen
Hiding out was dull work. Perhaps that was why the men at Sinking Canyons took such an interest in Jasper’s archaeological dig. It gave them something to do, something to talk about, a mystery to figure out. They held lengthy debates over whether it made more sense to dig shallow over a broad area, or more deeply in a tighter, focused area. Many of the men kept their own catalogs of the objects found at the diggings, separate from the official record kept by Jasper, who hoped to donate his work to the university in Tambluff as soon as the Errolsons returned to Corenwalder society.
Not that there were many findings to record. They found more timbers and some floorboards they believed
