| He shifted his weight to the other side, bringing his pistol closer to his right hand. "You welcome to the vittles," he said toward the concealed voice. |
| "You damned tootin' I'm welcome!" the prowler answered. "Now, back away! One wrong move and vittles will be your least worry!" |
| The black man chuckled lightly. The words were hollow, didn't ring true. Now he was sure the man was bluffing, unarmed after all. Driven by hunger probably. |
| He stood up, a tall, wide-shouldered, dark-skinned man. "Talk like that won't fill your belly, mister," he said, and flicked aside the butt of his cigarette, the last one he was liable to see in a while. "'Specially when you ain't got nothin' to back it up with." Just then he saw out of the corner of his eye the bushes move, the other prowler skulking near his tied-up horse. "You!'' he shouted. "Touch that hoss and I'll kill you!" |
| The man who had spoken came out, walking forward awkwardly, grinning oafishly. He was tall, thin-faced, wolfish-looking. Looked to be in his early thirties. Hair the color of wheat straw stuck out from under a gray kepi cap. And he was unarmed after all. |
| "Come on out, Payne!" wolf-face called out to his partner. "He's onto us!" Payne walked out in the open. He was a smallish man, also in his thirties, and rail-thin, emaciated, sick-looking. Like his partner he wore mismatched, ill-fitting pieces of Confederate army clothes, and had a bone-handled skinning knife stuck in his waistband. |
| The black man stood off from the fire, watching the two men come into camp. Payne's eyes followed the other man's over to the cook fire where the aroma of roasting rabbit was coming from. |
| "Food's y'alls," said the black man, guessing they were more starved than dangerous. "Ain't much, but it's fillin'." |
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