CHAPTER NINE
CUNNINGHAM HAD A GOOD CACHE OF supplies-staple foods such as beans and rice, and a fair variety of canned goods, including some canned ground beef. Sally cooked up a meal that was a real treat after the stringy dried beef.
There wasn't room for everyone at the table, so at the old man's insistence, the women had to settle for the floor. Only Viola complained about this, Cunningham's women seeming to accept it as their natural lot.
Sam spent most of the meal making sarcastic remarks about the mythical treasure, which he'd already come to disbelieve in. Cunningham ignored this, and talked incessantly about how he would spend his share of the money: sending Sally off to finishing school to make a lady of her, dressing Desert Rose in the finest clothing and parading her arou
