“She didn’t!”
“Yes, she did. And when you think—it was her own husband.”
“A remarkable woman,” Adam repeated Will’s phrase.
“She’s practical. She knew they had to be fed and she fed them.”
“I guess she’ll be all right, but it must be a great loss to her.”
“She’ll be all right,” Will said. “And she’ll outlive us all, little tiny thing that she is.”
On his drive back to the ranch Adam found that he was noticing things he had not seen for years. He saw the wildflowers in the heavy grass, and he saw the red cows against the hillsides, moving up the easy ascending paths and eating as they went. When he came to his own land Adam felt a quick pleasure so sharp that he began to examine it. And suddenly he found himself saying aloud in rhythm with his horse’s trotting feet, “I’m free, I’m free. I don’t have to worry any more. I’m free. She’s gone. She’s out of me. Oh, Christ Almighty, I’m free!”
He reached out and stripped the fur from the silver-gray sage beside the road, and when his fingers were sticky with the sap he smelled the sharp penetrating odor on his fingers, breathed it deep into his lungs. He was glad to be going home. He wanted to see how the twins had grown in the two days he had been gone—he wanted to see the twins.
“I’m free, she’s gone,” he chanted aloud.
2
Lee came out of the house to meet Adam, and he stood at the horse’s head while Adam climbed down from the buggy.
“How are the boys?” Adam asked.
“They’re fine. I made them some bows and arrows and they went hunting rabbits in the river bottom. I’m not keeping the pan hot though.”
“Everything all right here?”
Lee looked at him sharply, was about to exclaim, changed his mind. “How was the funeral?”
“Lots of people,” Adam said. “He had lots of friends. I can’t get it through my head that he’s gone.”
“My people bury them with drums and scatter papers to confuse the devils and put roast pigs instead of flowers on the grave. We’re a practical people and always a little hungry. But our devils aren’t very bright. We can outthink them. That’s some progress.”
“I think Samuel would have liked that kind of funeral,” said Adam. “It would have interested him.” He noticed that Lee was staring at him. “Put the horse away, Lee, and then come in and make some tea. I want to talk to you.”
Adam went into the house and took off his black clothes. He could smell the sweet and now sickish odor of rum about himself. He removed all of his clothes and sponged his skin with yellow soap until the odor was gone from his pores. He put on a clean blue shirt and overalls washed until they were soft and pale blue and lighter blue at the knees where the wear came. He shaved slowly and combed his hair while the rattle of Lee at the stove sounded from the kitchen. Then he went to the living room. Lee had set out one cup and a bowl of sugar on the table beside his big chair. Adam looked around at the flowered curtains washed so long that the blossoms were pale. He saw the worn rugs on the floor and the brown path on the linoleum in the hall. And it was all new to him.
When Lee came in with the teapot Adam said, “Bring yourself a cup, Lee. And if you’ve got any of that drink of yours, I could use a little. I got drunk last night.”
Lee said, “You drunk? I can hardly believe it.”
“Well, I was. And I want to talk about it. I saw you looking at me.”
“Did you?” asked Lee, and he went to the kitchen to bring his cup and glasses and his stone bottle of ng-ka-py.
He said when he came back, “The only times I’ve tasted it for years have been with you and Mr. Hamilton.”
“Is that the same one we named the twins with?”
“Yes, it is.” Lee poured the scalding green tea. He grimaced when Adam put two spoonfuls of sugar in his cup.
Adam stirred his tea and watched the sugar crystals whirl and disappear into liquid. He said, “I went down to see her.”
“I thought you might,” said Lee. “As a matter of fact I don’t see how a human man could have waited so long.”
“Maybe I wasn’t a human man.”
“I thought of that too. How was she?”
Adam said slowly, “I can’t understand it. I can’t believe there is such a creature in the world.”
“The trouble with you Occidentals is that you don’t have devils to explain things with. Did you get drunk afterward?”
“No, before and during. I needed it for courage, I guess.”
“You look all right now.”
“I am all right,” said Adam. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.” He paused and said ruefully, “This time last year I would have run to Sam Hamilton to talk.”
“Maybe both of us have got a piece of him,” said Lee. “Maybe that’s what immortality is.”
“I seemed to come out of a sleep,” said Adam. “In some strange way my eyes have cleared. A weight is off me.”
“You even use words that sound like Mr. Hamilton,” said Lee. “I’ll build a theory for my immortal relatives.”
Adam drank his cup of black liquor and licked his lips. “I’m free,” he said. “I have to tell it to someone. I can live with my boys. I might even see a woman. Do you know what I’m saying?”
“Yes, I know. And I can see it in your eyes and in the way your body stands. A man can’t lie about a thing like that. You’ll like the boys, I think.”
“Well, at least I’m going to give myself a chance. Will you give me another drink and some more tea?”
Lee poured the tea and picked up his cup.
“I don’t know why you don’t scald your mouth, drinking it that hot.”
Lee was smiling inwardly. Adam, looking at him, realized that Lee was not a young man any more. The skin on his cheeks was stretched tight, and its surface shone as though it were glazed. And there was a red irritated rim around his eyes.
Lee studied the shell-thin cup in his hand and his was a memory smile. “Maybe if you’re free, you can free me.”
“What do you mean, Lee?”
“Could you let me go?”
“Why, of course you can go. Aren’t you happy here?”
“I don’t think I’ve ever known what you people call happiness. We think of contentment as the desirable thing, and maybe that’s negative.”
Adam said, “Call it that then. Aren’t you contented here?”
Lee said, “I don’t think any man is contented when there are things undone he wishes to do.”
“What do you want to do?”
“Well, one thing it’s too late for. I wanted to have a wife and sons of my own. Maybe I wanted to hand down the nonsense that passes for wisdom in a parent, to force it on my own helpless children.”
“You’re not too old.”
“Oh, I guess I’m physically able to father a child. That’s not what I’m thinking. I’m too closely married to a quiet reading lamp. You know, Mr. Trask, once I had a wife. I made her up just as you did, only mine had no life outside my mind. She was good company in my little room. I would talk and she would listen, and then she would talk, would tell me all the happenings of a woman’s afternoon. She was very pretty and she made coquettish little jokes. But now I don’t know whether I would listen to her. And I wouldn’t want to make her sad or lonely. So there’s my first plan gone.”
“What was the other?”
“I talked to Mr. Hamilton about that. I want to open a bookstore in Chinatown in San Francisco. I would live in the back, and my days would be full of discussions and arguments. I would like to have in stock some of those dragon-carved blocks of ink from the dynasty of Sung. The boxes are worm-bored, and that ink is made from fir smoke and a glue that comes only from wild asses’ skin. When you paint with that ink it may physically be black but it suggests to your eye and persuades your seeing that it is all the colors in the world. Maybe a painter would come by and we could argue about method and haggle about price.”
Adam said, “Are you making this up?”
“No. If you are well and if you are free, I would like to have my little bookshop at last. I would like to die there.”