| OCR Text |
Show 166 "Carlo has the key. I wanted the hose yesterday and he had to get it out for me. But I think he went shopping with Alice. Why don't you wait till tomorrow?" "No, I feel too jittery. I want to do something with my hands. Maybe if I can find a screwdriver I could loosen the hasp or take the hinges off." He went out through the hall, leaving me with the Indian. I thought about Carlo, that wise child; he was frighteningly bright but Alice had his number too. She wasn't a bad woman but she was a destroyer; somehow I would have to get Carlo away from her. I felt I had it in me to help him. And who'd help me? That remained to be seen. Morgan, perhaps. "Buck." I looked up. Jacob was back again; he held in his hands a long narrow package wrapped in a burlap sack. "What have you got there?" He laid his bundle on the dining-room table and began to unwrap it. "I don't know what made me look," he said. "It was all the way back in a corner, behind the shovels and rakes." "Adam's old twenty-two rifle," I said. The letters A.S. were neatly cut into the stock down next the butt-plate. There were little streaks and ellipses of fresh rust on the metal of the barrel and receiver. I worked the bolt; an empty cartridge case j •imped out on the table and rolled-it |
