legs hadn't taken him far from the car when he heard a harsh, "Hold up!"

First one, then the other Carver brother stepped out from a scrub oak thicket—short, leathery old men, with ragged whiskers and dirt seamed into their faces and wrists. They eyed him malevolently over raised shotguns.

"Came to talk to you," Jerry said mildly.

One of them—he thought it was Ed—spat.

"Ah, now," Jerry went on in an aggrieved tone, "that's a fine way to treat a son of Jack Bronson."

The Carver brothers glanced at one another, then the shotguns lowered. "Come along," they said gruffly. In the littered yard by their cabin, they pointed to a bench and squatted down before it on their thin old shanks.

"New people in Dark Valley."

They nodded.

"They've bought it from the bank. They own it clear to the ridge line, including your place, here."

"We been here forty years," said Ed.

"If I owned it you could stay forty more."

"They send you?" the voice was sharp, suspicious.

Jerry shook his head. "I just thought you'd like to know about it."

For a couple of minutes the Carver brothers chewed tobacco in unison. They stood up, reached for their guns. "We'll see," they said.

Jerry nodded. They walked beside him, kicking thoughtfully at the leaves. The brother named Mike rubbed his whiskers. "Get much of a look at 'em when ye passed through?"

"Some."

"They furriners?"

Jerry sighed inwardly. "Maybe. They look like hard workers."

The Carver brothers cackled suddenly. "They better be! To farm that land."

Jerry passed back through the valley. A man knocking out stumps waved to him. A woman in a barnyard swished out her big skirts, shooing chickens. At that first farm, a trickle of water still ran from the pump....

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