Flagg instantly grabbed at a wooden spill that made a marker in the volume and nipped back the pages. He shook aloft his clinched left hand. He raised his voice and boomed. “‘And if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.’”
Flagg beat his knotted fist on the open page. “Do you hear that, Latisan? That’s for you. I hunted it up. I haven’t had time till now to read the Bible like I should. Plenty of good stuff in it—but in the Old Testament, mind you! Too much turn-your-cheek stuff in the New Testament. ’Eye for an eye.’ Do you know who said that?”
“No, sir. I’m sorry to admit it, but——”
“God Almighty said it. Said it to Moses on the mount. First straight-arm orders from God to man. It ought to be good enough for you and me, hadn’t it? Take it for rule o’ conduct, and if Rufe Craig says anything to you on the drive refer him here—to headquarters!” Again he beat his fist on the page.
“I don’t know what part of the Bible Craig ought to study, sir, but some of it ought to be good for him. I’m just from the train. They wouldn’t load our dynamite at the junction. Craig is behind that!”
“Wouldn’t haul our dynamite?” raged Flagg. “And he has been shipping his canned thunder through here for Skulltree by the carload! Latisan, you’re falling down on the job. When I, myself, was attending to it, my dynamite was loaded for Adonia all right enough!”
The drive master did not reply to that amazing shifting of blame to him.
“Did you say what ought to be said to that conductor?”
“When I started to say something he bawled me out for using that kind of language on railroad property.”
Flagg lifted the useless right hand with his left, let it fall again, and groaned. “How many times, and where, did you hit him? And then what did you say?”