A selection from "Terence the Turtle". "Buck-wild."

"Doodle-boy" said Deddy.  "I'll get the wheelbarrah and you, them two old shovels, before your ma sees, make for the back acreage."

Doodle looked confused for a second, perpetually to have an instant of recognition, perpetually too to seem confused as the wheels turned, un-sprung mass and all that, a certain careening in the thinkmeats, as it were, and a common state of the universe and mankind in general.

But we bring certainty from confusion, maybe, and Doodle did too, and he beat-feet for the shovels, then with the old rusty shovels, to the wood, and into it, until at last he turned and couldn't see either Deddy or the house.

So he stopped, and the countenance was surety and not confusion, though he was kind of lost at the moment, but looking sure anyway, a kind of faith in Deddy beyond most other things.

---

They dug, indeed as was said, some people have loaded guns, and some dig, or some where born rich and some had to dig for it, a sort of clam hunt rapscallion hand-to-mouth in which so many of us Cheevers were born into it; some call it America, and some push for something they call "Universal Basic Income".

The neighborhood thirsty turtle showed, perhaps drawn by the noise, to see what clatter

or chatter

whatsoever

was the matter.

Terence the Friendly and Inquisitive Tortuga, a relic of a more civilized age, perhaps, something of 80 or 90 year old in turtle years, a green prune, that one, somewhere between in the doldrums between forgetfulness and insistence.

Deddy clanged on something and got his hands into it, the substrate, and came up with a skull, laughing.  "Hee hee."

He rolled it to the edge of the clearing, away from all the treasure holes and the old shanty, the old Presbyterian thing or sharecropper palace, Saddams Forbidden Kingdom or whatever the hell, away from that, the grayboard hotel of dust and cockroaches, and it disappeared into the brush, as Deddy overshot the whole thing.

---

At the In and Out, Clarence sat behind the counter, just kind of hating everything.  

Gerald Hooks came in and cribbed some Hot Chips, and took off before Clarence could get at the pistol, and be damned: he was too nonchalant to call the local police, to baked-in in apathy to call over a 1.89 Hot Chips bag, and generally not giving a fig whether the whole place went to hell or not.

He would have shot Gerald, perhaps out of pure mean-ness, not in some fit of allegiance to his employer, no, not that, but out of pure mean-ness, and not some pride in standing watch over the place; it was just the thing to do, to kill them before they killed you.

Gerald ran and got into the woods, laughing to himself at having got over.

He ran and ran.

Eventually, he hit the clearing, and ignoring Deddy and Doodle over the mounds, he went straight on, and fell right into a hole, hitting his head, twisting and neck and falling unconscious, and that, right beside his bag of Hot Chips.

----

"Ooh" said Deddy.  "I think my Roy the Rooster soured on mah stomach." He said, wincing, pawing at his navel chasm.  He was talking of his morning cereal, that sometimes it came back on him, came up in unexpected ways, out of some edifice or something, came back unused.

He crossed over to one of the old treasure holes and pulled his pants down, backing-up to the pit, and he shat right into it.

Onto an unconscious Gerald, and none were the wiser.

Shit-assed and unwiped, Deddy cowboy-walked, bow-legged back over to where he had been digging just moments before.  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a frond move, and caught sight of Terence rolling the old Civil War skull or whatever back to the edge of the clearing, the skull from earlier.

"Ain't you just independent?"  Deddy said, and Doodle looked where he was looking, and they were both looking at Terence.  Deddy giggled at the unbelievable nature of the thing, that maybe Terence had a message from the universe.  "As loose as a stray foot to the groin, that one, Doodle.  I swear that turtle of yours got trained somewhere."

---

Deddy and Doodle moved over during the day, from area to area, going about seven or eight feet on each section, Deddy helping Doodle up with each egress, and they got closer to the shanty, the grayboards.

They done digged so much the old grayboard fell right on his foot, and not the meat of the foot, but the end of the shoe, pinioning him down where he had to eventually just let it set and come out the forest with only one shoe, which was but a small sacrifice for hunting his first million dollars, like making an investment on a larger return later, a down payment on opulence and financial independence.