Part 2 (2/2)

”And how do you think,” Bibbers was saying when Joe joined the group, ”I got this?”

He held up his right hand so the a.s.sembled 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. n.o.body 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 n.o.body had any reason to doubt it.

”Do you want,” Bibbers bl.u.s.tered, ”to make something of it?”

Percy's shrug was cold as ice. ”You asked me.”

”Shut up, Percy,” Lew Garrow urged. ”Let him talk.”

”Yeah,” Fellers Compton seconded. ”Let him talk.”

”All right,” Percy agreed. ”Go ahead and talk, Bibbers.”

”I got this cut,” Bibbers said, sure that he had won an encounter which he had not won at all, ”in a fight with Apaches. It was in Arizona territory....”

For a couple of moments Joe listened with great interest to a lurid tale of a battle which Bibbers had had with eight Apaches. He shot six of them, and with the last two it was knife to knife. At that point the story became so absurd that Joe lost himself in his own thoughts.

Bibbers was a liar, had always been one. However, select ten groups of men from ten parts of the country and they would average out about the same. The fact that any part of the country could produce its quota of asinine braggarts was not necessarily a reflection on the country. Joe unleashed himself completely.

Suppose a man owned everything on his land and the land too? He'd still have to work, but he wouldn't have to work until his whole insides tightened into a hard knot, and inner forces built up so tensely that he seemed ready to explode! When things got that bad, if it were not for Elias Dorrance, a man could take an hour and go hunting or fis.h.i.+ng or just walking. Would it ever be that bad if land was something between a man and his G.o.d, and not between a man and his banker? Would it be bad at all if he knew that his children were going to find opportunities which they could never have here?

Then there was the rest of it; the eternal wondering about the unknown!

Wouldn't a man rid himself of that burden if he went to see for himself?

”One time in Sonora,” Bibbers Townley was saying, and Joe listened with little interest while Bibbers regaled his audience with another improbable adventure. Joe stared beyond the stove, and saw only the vision that arose in his own mind. He broke into Bibbers' account of what he had done one time in Sonora.

”What about land,” he called.

”Land? Land, my friend? Do you want to know how they measure land in the west? I'll tell you.”

Immediately he started telling, all about how he had staked out land by riding for three days straight west, then three south, three east, and three north. Finally he came back to the starting point and all the land he'd ridden around was his. Joe spat disgustedly.

”You thinkin' of goin'?” John Geragty asked Joe.

”I've been pondering on it.”

”So have I.”

Joe slipped away from the group and his feet were light on the starry path. The curtains had parted, at least for the time being, and he had seen the bright promise. He must hurry home at once so he could tell Emma about it too.

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