I counted them tickets, and I’ve got twenty. Magpie smoothes his mustache and watches me in the back bar mirror. Then he clears his throat and says—
“It’ll be somethin’ we’ll all date time from, gents.”
“To me,” says I, “it’ll be jist a justified killin’, you long geared pickpocket. You took that twenty out of my pocket and put in them numbered cards.”
“Blessed be the meek,” says Old Testament.
“Meek be damned! I want my money. What are these chances on, anyway?”
“Scenery Sims’ autymobile,” says Buck. “It cost a thousand, new. If you can win it for twenty dollars—”
I blowed right up, but Wick Smith cramped my gun hand and tried to explain:
“It’s to build a new church and buy a bell. It means advancement for Piperock. Here’s Old Testament, grown as gray as a jackrabbit, tryin’ to chase the devil away from us. He’s been a long laborer in the vineyard of the Lord, and we’ve got to show our appreciation. Our church don’t look like a church. There ain’t no bell. Your twenty will do more good where it is right now than over Buck’s bar.”
“You don’t need to git so damn’ enthusiastic,” growled Buck. “I’ve gotta live, ain’t I?”
“That’s all fine,” says I, “but I don’t never go to church. I’m master of my own soul, and I don’t need no sky pilotin’. I wouldn’t give twenty dollars to that church, even if they’d give me Testament’s hide and taller as a bonus. And that was the only twenty dollars I had left.”