"You just go in and gab with those women folks," he said. "I'll take care of it."
"Shouldn't we call the sheriff?"
His eyes came up level with hers. "We ain't goin' to call nobody. I don't want no trouble. And don't you go talkin' about it with them either."
The phone was Mrs. Swearingen who told her that she had been trying to get her for the last half hour ever since she heard about that ship that crashed and wasn't it awful and that a person wasn't safe in his bed asleep any more with these planes flying around and crashing—and so far from an airport, too. Mrs. Swearingen was surprised that Alice had noticed no smoke and didn't she know the wreck was closer to the McNearby place than it was to the Swearingens?
"It's right south of your lower forty on the old Carnahan land, Alice. I'd figure it at about a mile from your place. Lots of people down there."
And then there was the call from Mrs. Abbey who told her she'd come from the crash site and wasn't it a peculiar plane with those funny windows and that once-broken-one somebody had patched up from the inside.
"The sheriff won't let anybody go near it," Mrs. Abbey said. "He says it's a space ship and the army ought to have a look at it first. But I saw him trying to find where to get in. Except for that broken window and that crumpled nose it don't look too bad off. Big clouds of smoke were shooting out the tail when I first got there but it's not smoking any more. Really, you ought to go down and see it, Alice."
Alice told her husband about it. He had gone back to the barn and she didn't see the severed hand anywhere on the way there.
"So that's where it come from," he said. "Good thing it didn't land on my place." He spat and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his overalls. It always bothered Alice when he did this because the stain was so difficult to get out but she had long ceased trying to change him. "If it'd landed here I'd of blown it up like a stump."
"Shouldn't we go down and see it?" Alice asked, knowing too late she had phrased the question the wrong way.