“The reason I was asking, as I came by the River Forks I found a little red boat there with a man on the cabin floor shot through––”
“Dead?” Nelia gasped.
“No, just kind of pricked up a bit, into one shoulder. He said a lady shot him because he ’lowed to land into the same eddy with her.”
“But—where––?” Nelia half-whispered. “Where did he go?”
“Hit were Jest Prebol,” Mrs. Caope said. “You was tellin’ of him, Parson.”
“Hit were Prebol,” Rasba nodded, “an’ he shore needed shooting!”
“Yas, suh. That kind has to be shot some to make ’em behave theirselves,” Mrs Caope exclaimed, sharply. “If it wa’n’t fer ladies shootin’ men onct in awhile, down Old Mississip’, why, ladies couldn’t git to live here a-tall!”
“And women, sometimes, don’t do men any good,” Rasba mused, aloud, “I’ve wondered right smart about hit. You see, a parson circuit rides around, an’ he sees a sight more’n he tells. Lawse, he shore do!”
The two women glared at him, but he was studying his huge hands, first the backs and then the calloused palms. He was really wondering, so the two women glanced at each other, laughing. The idea that probably some men needed protection from women could not help but amuse while it exasperated them. 75
“Prebol said,” Rasba continued, “hit were a pretty woman, young an’ alone. ‘How’d I know?’ he asked. ‘How’d I know she were a spit-fire an’ mean, theh all alone into a lonesome bend? How’d I know?’”