You can use the bank and bonded
messengers--they get along with dogs." "Telling me how to run my business?" "I'm telling you to give me that gun. You'll get the same police
protection as any other citizen." Neff sneered openly. "I'd a been dead thirty years ago depending on
cops." "I don't doubt that a minute. You're easy to hate, Erd. Are you going
to give me that gun?" "No." "You like things the hard way, don't you?" Burns got back in the squad
car and drove off. Neff spat a crater in the wheat-littered dust and
got into his own car. *       *       *       *       *

Two minutes later he turned up Main Street and stopped before city
hall. Inside the tiny police station he dropped his pistol on the
counter. Bud Ackenbush looked up from his desk. "You could have saved
Collin some trouble." Neff stalked out without a word and crossed the street to the Palace
Cafe. He ordered a double-thick steak, fried potatoes and pie. He
liked the way the waitresses scrambled for the chance to wait on him. Women didn't like him. He was ugly and smelled of sweat, and on the
street women looked the other way when they met him. All but the
waitresses at the Palace. When he came in they showed their teeth and
tongues and wiggled their hips. He was a 50-cent tipper. The important thing was it got him his steak, really double thick and
double quick. People could be real efficient. Like brown John. Prod
'em where they live and they'll do anything. Even talk to you. "You look kinda naked tonight, Erd," Gloria kidded. Neff wiped steak juice from his chin and stared at her breasts. It
used to excite him, but now it was just habit. It was better than
looking at red-smeared lips that smiled and eyes that didn't, eyes
that said, "Don't forget the tip, you filthy bastard!" Funny. Hang a gun on any other citizen in town and people would stare. Take the gun off of Erd Neff and people make cracks. He did feel naked. "I didn't order this damned succotash!" "It's free with the steak dinner, Erd." Go ahead, pinch my leg like the harvesting crews do. I'm free with the
dinner, too. Like the ketchup. Like the mustard and the salt and
pepper and the steak sauce and the sugar and the extra butter if you
ask for it, just don't forget the tip. Clarence Hogan, the fry-cook, came around the counter and leaned on
the booth table beside Gloria. "You don't like succotash? How about
some nice peas, Erd?" Clarence was Gloria's husband. Pimp! "Put some ice-cream on my pie," Neff said. He looked up at Clarence. "No, I don't want any goddamned peas!" They brought his pie and left him alone. He finished it and felt in
his pocket for the tip. He changed his mind. To hell with Gloria and
her fat leg! The steak was tough. He paid the check and went out. The sky was pink yet. Later in the
week the sunsets would be blood-red, as the great combines increased
in number and cruised the rippling ocean of wheat, leaving bristly
wakes and a sky-clogging spray of dust. Neff's busiest season. Damn that dog! Damn Collin Burns! His hand brushed his leg where the leather holster should be. Damned
laws that men made. Laws that acquitted him of homicide and then
snatched away his only weapon of self-defense because he shot a
yapping dog. As he got in his car Collin Burns came out of the station. He tossed
Neff's gun through the open window onto the seat. "Here's your
property. The Marshal came in, and he changed everybody's mind. It's
going to cost you a hundred dollars and a new pup for the little girl,
probably. Here's the subpoena. Tuesday at ten." "I don't get it." "The Marshal said to let you fight your own battles." *       *       *       *       *

Neff started the car and let the clutch out. The Marshal knew his way
around. The transient harvesting crews were a wild bunch. If word got
out that Neff was unarmed, packing thousands of dollars the length of
the county, the enforcement people would have a lot of extra work on
their hands. He parked behind the warehouse, next to the railroad tracks. He came around front, unlocked the big door, pulled it shut behind him
and bolted it. The warehouse was jet black now, but he knew every inch
of the place. He could fire his pistol almost as accurately at a sound
as at a visible target. He practiced on rats. Holding a pocket flash, he worked the combination. As the final
tumbler fell silently, a faint, raspy screech came to his ears, like a
board tearing its rusty nails loose under the persuasion of a wrecking
bar. He listened a minute, then he levered the bolts back, stepped
into the vault-room, closed the door and shot the mechanical bolts. Sure. Someone was out there, but they'd get damned tired before
morning. He flicked on the light and touched the other wall switch
beside it. The powerful blower and sucker fans cleared out the musty
air and rat-stink. John rustled in the cage, blinking at the sudden light. "Hi, Neff! Meat! Meat! Meat!" Smart little devil! Neff sometimes brought him a scrap from his
dinner, but he hadn't thought to tonight. He sucked at his teeth and
pulled out a tiny string of steak. "Here. Bite my finger and I'll poke
both your eyes out." John picked the thread of gristle from Neff's finger with his
fore-paws and devoured it, trembling with pleasure. Neff lifted the
cage. "Okay, now let's have a few tricks." At once John made for the can of wheat. "Get outta there!" Neff
scooped him up and dropped him on the desk, snapping his tail with a
forefinger. John whirled, laid his ears back and opened his mouth. At
bay, the brown rat, Neff knew, is the most ferocious rodent of the
2000 species, but Neff held his hand out daring John to bite. Neff knew all about rats. More than anybody in the world knew about
rats. When you live among them for three decades you find out about
their cunning wariness, fecundity, secretiveness, boldness, omnivorous
and voracious appetites. Fools reviled them as predators and
scavengers. Neff appreciated them for what they really are: The most
adaptable mammal on earth. John was smart but no smarter than the rest. Neff had proved this by
teaching every rat he captured alive to talk. Impossible they had told him. Even parrots and parakeets only imitate
sounds in their squawking--yes, and pet crows. Animals don't have
thinking brains, they said. They react, trial and error, stimulus and
response, but they don't _think_. Neff didn't know about the others, but he knew about rats. Keep them hungry and lonely for a mate. Hurt them. Torture them. To
hell with this reward business. Rats are like men. Mentally lazy. They'll go for bait, sure, but they'll go faster to escape pain--a
thousand times faster. And rats have lived with man from the first. They have a feeling for
language like the human brat. Between partitions, inches from a man's
head when he lies in bed talking to his wife, under a man's feet while
he's eating, over his head in the warehouse rafters while he's
working.