Hud Perkins snorted. "Don't blame you for leavin', got no use for Army
posts myself. You goin' east?"
"Not all the way," Ali said. "Too far east is no better than too far
west. I think I'll go back along the road. I saw a lot of free country
there."
Hud Perkins was silent for a long while, then he said quietly, "You saw
it two years ago."
"But--" Ali was startled. "It isn't all taken?"
"I don't know," Hud Perkins spoke as a bewildered old man who no longer
knew about anything. "Was a time when I figgered the West'd never settle
an' a man would always find room. But--Anyhow it's two years since I
come out."