“Right here,” said Alf. “Told him you’d probably want a word with him. Do the best you can for me.”
Alf’s face faded out of the ground glass and the sheriff’s came in, a heavy, florid face, but the face of a harassed man.
“Sorry about Alf, doc,” he said, “but I’m getting sick and tired of running the boys off the reservation. Thought maybe clapping some of them in jail might help. This reservation business is all damn foolishness, of course, but a law’s a law.”
“I don’t blame you,” Carter said. “The Preachers alone are enough to run you ragged.”
The sheriff’s florid face became almost apoplectic. “Them Preachers,” he confided, “are the devil’s own breed. Keeping the people stirred up all the time with their talk of evil from the stars and all such crazy notions. Earth’s getting tough about it, too. All of them seem to come from Mars and they’re riding us to find out how they get that way.”
“Just jug hunters gone wacky,” declared Carter. “Wandering around in the desert they get so they talk to themselves and after that anything can happen.”
The sheriff wagged his head. “Not so sure about that, doc. They talk pretty convincing — almost make me believe them sometimes. If they’re crazy, it’s a queer way to go crazy — all of them alike. All of them tell the same story — all of them got a funny look in their eyes.”
“How about Alf, sheriff?” asked Carter. “He’s my right-hand man and I need him now. Lots of work to do, getting ready to leave.”
“Maybe I can stretch a point,” said the sheriff, “long as you put it that way. I’ll see the district attorney.”