Lookin `round

Have we been out here long enough? Think that sheriff has gotten over it?

Why?

Cause, I want to get back to my place to see what's happenin, `n make sure nobody done walked off with anything.

Pablo, you got so much junk lying round how would you know if something was missing. Orville, Pablo is getting itchy feet, think it's time to go back to Arizona.

Bill, I'm just not certain about that sheriff taking this here lil boro away if we go back.

It's a chance you gotta take.

Guess so.

The men collected the camp and loaded up the wagon, Orville watered the boro afterwhich he hitched him and the cow up to the wagon and the small company of men and animals set off to the west, back to Arizona.

That night they camped just above a small arroyo that had a bare trickle in the bottom. Pablo took a water filter and set down on a rock and began pumping water through the filter and into a four gallon container. He looked down and spotted a small greenish rock near his foot that was getting splashed by the movement of the filter. He picked it up and turned it sideways.

Bill, Bill!

What?

I think we just paid for the trip. Look here.

What is it?

An emerald.

What!

I said I found an emerald, right here!

Over a dinner of stewed tempeh and redbeans the men examined the emerald.

Yep, its an emerald alright.

But how would an emerald find its way here, there is nothing around here that would produce and emerald,

Don't know, don't know, but it will make a nice one when it is cut and polished, an it'll certainly pay for this trip an more.

Maybe we should stick around and look for more.

That night the three men talked about whether to move on or to stay a day an explore. They went to bed that night undecided and each thought about wheter to stay or go in their solitary blanket time, nothing was out of the question for any of them, but, what all three of them wondered about more than whether they should stay or move on was how did an emerald come to be in the little arroyo they were camped next to, an if anything was to keep any of them up at night it would be wondering about that.