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that. And this is the best example of all. These stupid women are making pots. Pots! I mean, every trading post in Navajo country has women in the back making blankets. Now blankets sell, damn it, for $2000, $3000 dollars a rug. My luck, all these savages know how to make is pots. For Christ’s sake,” he rubbed his eyes, “hasn’t anyone got a fag?”
    When there was no answer, he opened his eyes and followed his visitors’ gaze to the deputy leaning in the doorway.
    “Good.” The trading post owner left the missionaries for Youngman. “You always have a fag.”
    Youngman had heard all Selwyn’s complaints many times. The “stupid” women making pots were Selwyn’s wife and daughters.
    “Sure.” He tapped out a cigarette for Selwyn. Youngman could see Franklin’s group bracing for a fight. Incredible. Like his store, Selwyn was a wreck in the desert, barely anchored enough in the sand not to roll into an arroyo or whatever else could serve as a gutter. Who would tolerate any white so collapsed except Indians? “There you go.” Youngman held a match to the shaking cigarette.
    “Thanks,” Selwyn muttered. “These bible-thumpers they send out now can give hemorrhoids to your ears.”
    “That so?”
    “Telling me about Indians, for Christ’s sake. Stick around. They’ll get their asses out of here and we’ll have a taste.”
    Selwyn’s wife giggled and Franklin cleared his throat because Selwyn’s voice had strayed to normal speaking level.
    “We’d intended to buy some supplies for our camp-out,” Franklin said. “With our change in schedule, we didn’t have a chance to in Flagstaff.”
    “I gotta go,” Youngman told Selwyn. “But I need some cornmeal, rope, a white sack.”
    “Who died?”
    “Abner.”
    “Shit, you don’t say.”
    “That was that Indian gentleman we saw this morning?” Franklin asked and was ignored.
    “You’re not going to give him a regular funeral, are you?” Selwyn asked Youngman.
    “Why not?” Franklin was outraged.
    “Because he was a goddamn witch, that’s why!” Selwyn wheeled on Franklin.
    “You don’t believe in that, surely.”
    “Believe? Brother Franklin, you don’t know where the hell you are, do you? Hey, honey,” Selwyn shouted to his wife, “any witches out here?”
    The woman dropped her giggling. She folded her hands on her lap and studied her pots.
    “Witches?” Selwyn laughed. “Well, the saints and apostles stop at the reservation line. What do you think this place is fit for? Indians, drunks, bums. Jesus, I was full of ‘thees and thous’ and the Spirit when I came out here forty years ago. Bet I was just as big an asshole as you, Brother. That’s hard to believe, too. Full of the Word, I was. Then one day, I found some of my congregation axing up an old woman. That was something. ‘Why are thee killing this woman?’ I ask. Almost got myself axed trying to stop them. Well, the reason they did her in was because the night before she’d turned herself into a wolf and killed a man.”
    “You didn’t believe them.”
    “Of course not. I’m not one of these ignorant savages. On the other hand, well, I stay away from haunted pueblos, you know, and when the Indians ax up a witch, which they do every year or so, I keep my mouth shut.” Selwyn paused. “You people keep giving me these pathetic looks. Don’t look at me, look around you. You give yourself some eyestrain trying to see to the end of that sand and you go get yourself lost in those canyons. While you’re there, you ask yourself what kind of gods live in a place like that.”
    “We aren’t totally unenlightened persons,” one of the other campers spoke up mildly. “Every society believes in a different Creator. Whatever names they give Him, the Creator is always much the same throughout the world.”
    “Yeah? You mean the Skeleton Man.”
    “Who?”
    “Skeleton Man. Masaw. You call him what you want. Pluto. Satan. I know a man,” Selwyn’s eyes glistened