"Quite a lot. But those darn mules--."
He told her of the trouble he'd had with the mules, but even while he
spoke it seemed to be someone else talking. He could not understand it
because it was past his understanding. To plow the earth and grow new
crops was always good. By such deeds people lived and had lived since
the beginning. But....
His every nerve and instinct, and his heart, told him that good land had
magic in it. It had been maddening, as a hired hand, to be able to feel
and touch this magic, and not to have it for his own. He had thought
that having his own land would change all this, but it hadn't.
Previously he had worked for wages while his employer reaped the benefit
of his labor. Now he was merely working for Elias Dorrance. As before,
all he could offer his family were the basic necessities. Joe looked
down at his empty plate.
Emma's understanding eyes were upon him. She said, "Why don't you take a
walk, Joe?"
"Now say! I might just do that! I might go down to Tenney's!"
"Why don't you?"
"I think I will."
Joe sought the star-lighted path leading to Tenney's general store,
which was the center of half a dozen houses at Tenney's Crossing and the
unofficial clubhouse for every man from miles around. Except for the
church, which most men would think of visiting only on Sunday if they
visited it at all, Tenney's store was the only meeting house. Joe looked
at the star-dappled sky, and he was struck by what seemed the odd
thought that he had never seen stars crowd each other aside.
Out in the shadows a bird twittered, and Joe stopped in his tracks. He
knew all the local birds by their songs, and he could give a fair
imitation of nearly all, but this one he could not identify and it
mystified him. He decided to his own satisfaction that it was a vagrant
mocking bird that had uttered a few off-key notes.
He was so absorbed in thinking about the bird that he reached Tenney's
Crossing almost before he realized it. By the thin light of an
early-rising moon he saw a man leaning at a slight angle against Frawley
Thompson's house. Without too much interest he recognized a local Indian
known as Lard Head, a nickname he had acquired from a passion for
slicking his black hair down with lard. Lard Head's other consuming
ambition in life was to get as drunk as possible as often as possible,
and obviously he was drunk again. He was fast asleep standing up, and
doubtless he would go looking for something else to drink as soon as he
awakened.
Yellow oil lamps glowed behind the store windows, and Joe set his course
straight. He saw Elias Dorrance come out of the store and linger in the
shadows, waiting for him, and he felt a rising irritation. He disliked
nobody simply because they had more than he, but he wouldn't have liked
Elias Dorrance under any conditions. Elias, who lived by the sweat and
toil of others, was an alien here in this place where most men lived by
their own labor. The banker spoke,
"Hi, Joe."
"Hi."
"Got your seeding done?" Dorrance asked casually.
"Why don't you come see for yourself. Elias?"
He brushed past and into the store, not thinking about the fact that he
had rebuffed the man to whom he owed money--and not caring. Elias
Dorrance was not being neighborly; he was just checking in advance to
find whether he'd get a payment this fall or whether he'd have to
foreclose on Joe's farm. Either way it made no difference; no amount of
sweet talk would keep Elias from getting his due and no other kind would
insult him if he saw money in the offing. Elias was a sponge. He
absorbed everything but had an amazing facility for disgorging whatever
would not benefit him.
Joe put Elias from his mind and went into the store. A kerosene lamp
burned in front and another in back, and in between was all the amazing
variety of goods that a store such as this must stock. Lester Tenney
sold everything from pins to farm wagons, and he always had exactly the
right amount of goods. This was no coincidence, and anywhere except here
Lester Tenney might have been a great merchant. He had an amazing
insight into his customers' exact needs. Nobody had ever had to wait for
him to put in a special offer or to bring goods from St. Louis.
A tall man whose gaunt frame made him seem even taller, Tenney was
rearranging goods on a shelf when Joe entered. Wispy brown hair fought
desperately for a hold on his balding head, but after the first
wondering glance few people noticed anything except Lester Tenney's
eyes. They were clear and blue, and very deep, and oddly similar to two
pieces of clear blue sky. The storekeeper gave Joe a friendly nod and a
cheery greeting.
"Good evening, Joe."
"Hi, Les. What's new?"
The storekeeper inclined his head toward a little knot of men gathered
under the second lamp at the rear of the store.
"Bibbers Townley came back. For the past hour he has been enchanting we
peasants with his adventures in the west."
"So?"
"Go back and listen," Lester Tenney advised. "It's worth it. The way
Bibbers tells it, compared to him Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus and
Daniel Boone were strict amateurs."
Joe looked with interest toward the men in the rear. Pete Domley, five
feet two and taciturn, stood against the pot-bellied stove which, at
this season, needed no fire. There were Yancey and Lew Garrow, lean and
sun-scorched. Joe saw old Tom Abend, wild Percy Pearl, John Geragty,
Fellers Compton, Joab Ferris and Lance Trevelyan. All these men he had
known for years, and the years had brought them closer together. Side by
side they had fought forest fires, battled to keep rain-swollen creeks
within their banks, built a new house or barn for some unfortunate whose
building had been destroyed by fire, hunted and fished together. Not one
of them was the enemy of any other.
Joe saw them almost as he would have seen his family, and he felt
pleased because they were present. His eyes strayed to the young man who
sat on the counter, with his right leg cocked nonchalantly over his left
knee, and he reflected that Bibbers Townley had changed very little.
Three years ago, then in his late teens, Bibbers had left Tenney's
Crossing. But there had been some preliminaries attending his departure.
For days preceding his final farewell he had absented himself. He
returned riding a fancy thoroughbred with a new saddle and he had also
got hold of two new Colt revolvers and an apparently endless supply of
ammunition. For two weeks, the guns prominent on his hips, he had
swaggered around announcing to anyone who would listen that no hick town
was big enough to hold him. He was, he said, a man of parts and he was
going into the west where there was room for men. At the slightest
provocation, and sometimes at none, he had drawn either or both of the
revolvers and shot at any convenient target.
Joe edged unobtrusively up beside the Garrow brothers and looked with
interest at Bibbers Townley. Before Joe was born, settlers had started
going west. Four families from Tenney's Crossing had gone, and Joe
himself had considered going. But a man didn't pull up stakes and move
that easily. At least, he didn't when he had six young ones to think
about.
"And how do you think," Bibbers was saying when Joe joined the group, "I
got this?"
He held up his right hand so the assembled men could see a white scar
running diagonally from the base of his little finger across the palm to
the base of his thumb. There was an uncertain silence, and Joe sensed a
rising scorn among his friends. He chuckled silently. Tenney had told
him that Bibbers had been talking for an hour, and evidently he had also
been lying for an hour. But he could still hold his audience partly
because he interested them and partly because, never having been west,
they could not completely distinguish Bibbers' fact from his fiction.
Then,
"You stuck your hand in the church poor box," Percy Pearl said smoothly,
"and the parson had left his knife in it. You grabbed the knife instead
of the money you thought you'd get."
Hot rage flashed the other's cheeks, and he braced his hands on the
counter as though he were about to jump down. Percy Pearl stood cool,
unflinching, and Bibbers settled back. Nobody knew how Percy Pearl
earned his living. He never worked and he never farmed and he was often
gone for long periods. But he always had a good horse and everything
else he needed. However, since he never did anything questionable around
Tenney's Crossing, it was just as well not to ask questions. Rumors were
current that Percy was good with a knife and equally good with a gun,
and nobody had any reason to doubt it.
"Do you want," Bibbers blustered, "to make something of it?"