ght the hay back to the loft floor and leaned on the pitchfork.

"Dobie's found something," she said and wished her voice hadn't
quavered so.

Mac spat a blob of tobacco on the floor above her. "He's a no-good
dog," he said. "Scares the pigs. Always sneakin' around. Ought to be
rid of him. Should have got 'round to it before this. What did he
find?"

"A hand." She swallowed ... and shivered.

"A what?"

"A hand. A human hand." She suddenly took pride in the fact that she
was telling him something he didn't know and that he was interested.
"I don't know where he got it."

Mac put down the fork and lowered his burly frame over the edge of the
opening and came down the ladder without a word. He followed her up to
the house and she was thankful Dobie was nowhere around. When he
kicked over the pail she was gratified to hear his sharp intake of
breath.

"By God!" he said, staring down at it. Then he flicked it over with
his boot. "By God!" he said again. Alice had never seen him so
agitated.

He turned to her, his eyes narrower than she had ever seen them. "You
take a good look at it?"

She nodded, looked down at the way the fingers were bent upward as if
the hand were holding an invisible ball. She heard Mac spit, looked at
him running his fingers along his stubbled jaw.

"It ain't human," he said. "Anybody with any sense could see that.
It's got six fingers."

* * * * *

Just then the phone rang again. It seemed to come from a long way off
and Alice hadn't consciously noticed it until her husband said. "Ain't
you goin' to answer the phone?" And then she went to the door, dazed
and wondering. She turned before she went in.

"What are you going to do with it?" she asked.

"You just go in and gab with those women folks," he said. "I'll take
care of it."

"Shouldn't we call the sheriff?"

His eyes came up level with hers. "We ain't goin' to call nobody. I
don't want no trouble. And don't you go talkin' about it with _them_
either."

The phone was Mrs. Swearingen who told her that she had been trying to
get her for the last half hour ever since she heard about that ship
that crashed and wasn't it awful and that a person wasn't safe in his
bed asleep any more with these planes flying around and crashing--and
so far from an airport, too. Mrs. Swearingen was surprised that Alice
had noticed no smoke and didn't she know the wreck was closer to the
McNearby place than it was to