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Fair enough, Moses says But did she tell you she killed my brother? And she did it with her bare hands, like an animal Is that somethin she mentioned over your evenin vittles?

James casts a brief look in her direction but doesn’t wait for either confirs to talk about, he says I’ll be in the next roo?

Teone

I been fine

He sucks in his lips, and his whole beard changes shape like a sea urchin, and she can see his white tonguein for a long speech

Nice accommodations you found for yourself, he says and uses his head to gesture all around him

Yeah, they’re right people A little screwy, some of em But they do keep a household

How’s the food?

Best I ate in a while

She sits down on the couch near the chair and rests her elbows on her knees She sets the gun on the coffee table, and he looks at it It would be within his reach if he were not tied

You better be careful, girl You best be sure I can’t bust this rope and rab at that

If you can do it, I invite you to It’ll finish the job one way or the other

He looks at her for a long ti her--but not under her clothes like where his brother’s eyes went The eyes of Moses Todd dig into her head and h bursts from his throat, and she jumps a little She can see little bits of food crusted in his beard

You got qualities, child, he says You sure got qualities

How’d you find me anyway?

I’m a tracker Greith hunters in Arkansas Filthy ht irls on the plains these days--yours ain’t a hard trail to sniff out

She looks hiood a tracker, she says

I’ot don a couple h theht in the middle of that without a quick means of exit

Yeah, I saw it They learned to eat other things Horses, raccoons They’ve gone cannibal, soht He shakes his head Now that is a unqualified perversion of nature, ain’t it?

It don’t bode well for starvin erees

I reckon when you leave here, he says, you won’t be going back through town then

She looks at him

Listen, she says I knohy you’re couessed as unpoint

Your brother, I took care of him--so he wouldn’t come back, I mean I wouldn’t wish that on anybody I took care of it

I know you did, and I’ed But it don’t quite ot to tell you--he wasn’t a good s He was movin to take unsolicited liberties with me

Moses Todd lowered his head and looked sadly into his lap for a moment Then he raised his eyes and spoke softly to her

To be honest, he said, I sort of figured that ht be the case He shouldn’t of done it And you have ht sympathies about that Abraham and me, ere cut froht in her eyes again, but differently this time

But the fact is, you and ot to discharge theot Who made Abraham Todd my brother? Who delivered you into his irl That boy was ood man But that don’t hs and sits back on the couch