“Do—do you see it, too?” asks Chuck.
“Just exactly,” states Magpie. “What is it?”
“If it ain’t the granddaddy uh all blue grouse I’ll eat my hat,”
orates Chuck. “Yuh see I been down to Piperock for three days, trying
to bust Buck’s wheel, and drink all the hooch in town. I comes along
the road this morning, singing merrily, when I happens to see that
busted crate in the road. I pulls up to see what it is, and my bronc
danged near dumps me off. He’s scared at something in the brush, and
when I spurs him over to see what it is, we scares out that blasted
thing!
“Not being responsible for my actions I takes down my rope and
proceeds to annex the thing. Between that thing and my bronc, they
makes life miserable for me, so I gets off and leaves ’em to their
fate. The rope is wound around the bush between ’em so they can’t do
nothing but stand there and contemplate each other.”
“I don’t reckon there’s any doubt about it being uh grown bird,”
states Magpie, fussing with uh cigaret.
“Your perceptions are wide open, Magpie,” nods Chuck. “Wonder where it
flew from. It ain’t no grouse nor yet it don’t partake of any of the
requirements of the fool-hen. It might uh been uh hummingbird about
the time this here world was started.”
“She’s sure uh hummer,” I agrees. “If I’d been born with uh neck like
that I’d uh died from delirium tremens years ago.”
“I’d opine that somebody done lost that crate off uh wagon, and maybe
there’s something around to tell what and whose it is,” says Magpie.
We all pilgrims back to the road, and Chuck leads us to the busted
bunch uh slats. On one side it says—