Three steps from the door, a stooped, white-mustached man in a collarless stiff-bosomed shirt swooped down on me, as if he had been lying in wait.
“My name’s Adderly,” he introduced himself, holding out one hand toward me while flicking the other at Adderly’s Emporium. “Got a minute or two to spare? I’d like to make you acquainted with some of the folks.”
The Circle H.A.R. men were walking slowly toward one of the machines in the street.
“Can you wait a couple of minutes?” I called after them.
Milk River looked back over his shoulder.
“Yes. We got to gas and water the flivver. Take yor time.”
Adderly led me toward his store, talking as he walked.
“Some of the better element is at my house—danged near all the better element. The folks who’ll back you up if you’ll put the fear of God in Corkscrew. We’re tired and sick of this perpetual hell-raising.”
We went through his store, across a yard, and into his house. There were a dozen or more people in his living-room.
The Reverend Dierks—a gangling, emaciated man with a tight mouth in a long, thin face—made a speech at me. He called me brother, he told me what a wicked place Corkscrew was, and he told me he and his friends were prepared to swear out warrants for the arrest of various men who had committed sixty-some crimes during the past two years.