I shifts the babies to one arm, grasps my empty gun in my right hand and hammers plentiful on that door.
My knock don’t seem to awaken no response; so I walks inside. There’s a lamp burning on the table, but nobody is in sight. I lays them offsprings on the bed and flops my aching bones into a chair.
My fingers are too stiff to even attempt to roll a smoke, and my arms are paralyzed. As soon as them kids hit the bed, they seems to ease off on the wailing, and my ears gets a needed rest. I sets there for a while, getting more normal all the time, and, when I hear noises outside, my nature asserts itself, and I crawls under the bed. Somebody is coming; my gun is empty, and I don’t feel like thinking up a lie.
Here they come, swearing and rattling. The door slams open, and they all clumps inside.
“Wife’s over at Jones’,” states a voice which comes in behind the bunch. “She slipped and sprained her ankle, Zeb.”
Several voices seems to all talk to once, but I seem to gather that somebody has been caught and deserves hanging. I sees a pair of big bare feet and a torn pants leg. When I peeks out a little more, I sees a rope hanging from above the feet.
“This is sure going hard with you, feller!” says a voice above the rest.
Then I hears Magpie’s voice, resigned-like:
“Why say ‘hard’? Human beings can’t hand me nothing more than I’ve already been through.”
“Here! Keep them dogs out of here!” yelps a voice. “Danged bloodhounds will track this carpet all up! Get under the bunk! Danged lop-earned trailers!”