Diesel kicked him in the leg.
“Thank you, sire,” Hatchet said.
Diesel shook his head. “That’s sick.”
Hatchet’s eyes opened and took a moment to focus. “What?” he said.
Diesel grabbed Hatchet by the front of his tunic and hoisted him to his feet. “That’s my question. What happened?”
“I know not. I was investigating the grave site, and that’s all I remember.” He touched his neck. “Ow!”
“It’s burned,” Diesel said. “In the shape of a hand.”
Hatchet looked confused. “Why?”
“Did you remove anything from the Tichy House?” I asked him.
“Nay. ’Twas junk and not worth taking.”
“That burn’s going to blister,” I told him. “You need to put some aloe on it.” I looked more closely at his face. He had a huge red splotch on his nose and another on his forehead. He scratched the one on his forehead.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“’Tis as if the foul farts have turned to these beastly hives. I rid myself of one plague only to acquire another.”
“If you still have them tomorrow, you might want to talk to Glo about it.”
Hatchet scratched his leg and his butt. “Might she find some spell to cure this?”
“Maybe,” I said. “In the meantime, you could try calamine lotion.”
“You have been most kind,” Hatchet said, “but I will still smite thee down if I must. I will slice off your ear, run my sword through your liver, boil you in a cauldron of oil if you attempt to slow me on my quest.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “I’ll add that to the list of things I can look forward to.”
“I think I doth got carried away with the oil,” Hatchet said. “It would be difficult to procure such an amount of oil.”
He scratched his crotch and under his arm, and he limped down the hill toward the road.
Diesel and I took one last futile look around, saw nothing that would indicate the presence of a clue, and followed Hatchet.
“I’m pretty sure there weren’t any other cars on the road when we parked,” I said to Diesel. “How did he get here? And how is he getting home?”
“Methinks we’ll find out,” Diesel said. “It appears he doth stand by my SUV.”
“Where’s your car?” I asked Hatchet.
“Stolen,” Hatchet said. “This day doth suck.”
&n
bsp; Diesel took Hatchet’s sword so he wouldn’t be tempted to run it through my liver, and we loaded him into the back of the SUV.
“Where do you want us to drop you?” Diesel asked.
“Put me in a sack and throw me into the river,” Hatchet said.
“Not my thing,” Diesel told him. “Pick something else.”