Alice put her hand on his shoulders and he stopped before he touched the gun. "Listen, Mac. They need that hand. It belongs to one of their men and they need it because they're going to put it back on and it will be as good as new. Then they're going to leave." He looked down at her with bloodshot, narrow eyes and she could see where tobacco had run out of the corner of his mouth and the only thing she could think of was what it would look like on the overalls when she'd wash them. "That thing out there," Mac said, "ain't got no business 'round here scarin' the pigs and chickens. And I aim to get it." "I wish you had told me where the hand is," Alice said, her eyes scalded with tears. "I tried to find it. I looked everywhere. If I had found it I would have given it to him and now they'd be gone." He shoved her from him rudely. "Jest like a woman to do a thing like that. And without even askin' me." He was breathing hard and he moved to the window to look at the alien again. "You, out there. You want that hand, eh?" He laughed again, then turned to her. "You looked for it. That's what you said. Well, you jest looked in the wrong place. I hid it good." He went over to his coat and withdrew a newspaper-wrapped package from one of the pockets. He unfolded it on the table. It was the hand. "Please take it out to him, Mac," Alice said. "He's waiting for it." His face was sour and his lips a sneer. "Give it to him, hell," he said. "Dobie brought it here, didn't he? I've a mind to let Dobie have it." "No, No!" Mac put his hands on the table, stared down at the hand and shook his head. "But Dobie don't deserve it." He picked up the hand and a queasiness prevented Alice from looking directly at it. "It's a matter of time," she pleaded. "Please take it to them. They've got to have it right away or they can't use it. She heard the clink of one of the stove lids and watched in horror as Mac dropped the hand through the hole into the fire beneath. She was suddenly sick. During it all she could hear was Mac's laughter. "Git on upstairs," he said a few minutes later. "Git on up to bed." * * * * * Alice looked at him, knowing her face was pale and her eyes wet and hating him for what he had done to her and what he had done to the aliens. But she felt fear, too, because she had never seen him quite like this. "What are you going to do?" He went over, took down a box of shells from the cupboard. "What d'you suppose? I'm goin' to run that thing off my place." "You can't do that!" "You wait and see." "But he's done nothing to you!" "He's on my property, ain't he? Now you get on upstairs like I told you. Git!" Alice went up the stairs engulfed by a feeling of sorrow for the aliens, particularly for the one that would never get his hand back, and filled with fury for her husband.