“The man in the moon,” said Jack Mills. “But I missed him a mile.”
She laughed and said she was glad of that. “I’d hate not to be able to see him up there once in a while,” she told Jack.
“Just to prove he ain’t hurt,” he assured her, “I’ll ride in and point him out to you when the signs is right.”
She shook her head, looking from one man to the other, withdrawing a little into the doorway. Jack marked, even then, that her eyes rested longest on Bud Loupel. “I’ve studied astronomy my own self,” she said, and while he was still crushed by that she backed into the store and disappeared.
The two mounted in silence and continued more demurely down the street. In front of Brady’s they hitched their horses, tramped dustily inside, and touched elbows at the bar. The first drink was taken without speech; the second followed it.
After a while Bud Loupel said: “Jack!”
“Huh?”
“Me, you know what I aim to do?”
Mills grinned. “I don’t know, but I’m waiting.”
“I aim,” said Bud Loupel, “to quit the range and get me a job in this here little old town.”