They rode on in silence for a time. Adam went on, “I came out of the army like dragging myself muddy out of a swamp. I wandered for a long time before going home to a remembered place I did not love.”
“Your father?”
“He died, and home was a place to sit around or work around, waiting for death the way you might wait for a dreadful picnic.”
“Alone?”
“No, I have a brother.”
“Where is he—waiting for the picnic?”
“Yes—yes, that’s exactly what. Then Cathy came. Maybe I will tell you some time when I can tell and you want to hear.”
“I’ll want to hear,” Samuel said. “I eat stories like grapes.”
“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.”
“I recognize it,” Samuel said. “That’s an old friend of mine. It never dies but sometimes it moves away, or you do. Yes, that’s my acquaintance—eyes, nose, mouth, and hair.”
“All this coming out of a little hurt girl.”
“And not out of you?”
“Oh, no, or it would have come before. No, Cathy brought it, and it lives around her. And now I’ve told you why I want the wells. I have to repay somehow for value received. I’m going to make a garden so good, so beautiful, that it will be a proper place for her to live and a fitting place for her light to shine on.”
Samuel swallowed several times, and he spoke with a dry voice out of a pinched-up throat. “I can see my duty,” he said. “I can see it plainly before me if I am any kind of man, any kind of friend to you.”
“What do you mean?”
Samuel said satirically, “It’s my duty to take this thing of yours and kick it in the face, then raise it up and spread slime on it thick enough to blot out its dangerous light.” His voice grew strong with vehemence. “I should hold it up to you muck-covered and show you its dirt and danger. I should warn you to look closer until you can see how ugly it really is. I should ask you to think of inconstancy and give you examples. I should give you Othello’s handkerchief. Oh, I know I should. And I should straighten out your tangled thoughts, show you that the impulse is gray as lead and rotten as a dead cow in wet weather. If I did my duty well, I could give you back your bad old life and feel good about it, and welcome you back to the musty membership in the lodge.”
“Are you joking? Maybe I shouldn’t have told—”
“It is the duty of a friend. I had a friend who did the duty once for me. But I’m a false friend. I’ll get no credit for it among my peers. It’s a lovely thing, preserve it, and glory in it. And I’ll dig your wells if I have to drive my rig to the black center of the earth. I’ll squeeze water out like juice from an orange.”
They rode under the great oaks and toward the house. Adam said, “There she is, sitting outside.” He shouted, “Cathy, he says there’s water—lots of it.” Aside he said excitedly, “Did you know she’s going to have a baby?”
“Even at this distance she looks beautiful,” Samuel said.
4
Because the day had been hot, Lee set a table outside under an oak tree, and as the sun neared the western mountains he padded back and forth from the kitchen, carrying the cold meats, pickles, potato salad, coconut cake, and peach pie which were supper. In the center of the table he placed a gigantic stoneware pitcher full of milk.
Adam and Samuel came from the wash house, their hair and faces shining with water, and Samuel’s beard was fluffy after its soaping. They stood at the trestle table and waited until Cathy came out.
She walked slowly, picking her way as though she were afraid she would fall. Her full skirt and apron concealed to a certain extent her swelling abdomen. Her face was untroubled and childlike, and she clasped her hands in front of her. She had reached the table before she looked up and glanced from Samuel to Adam.
Adam held her chair for her. “You haven’t met Mr. Hamilton, dear,” he said.
She held out her hand. “How do you do,” she said.
Samuel had been inspecting her. “It’s a beautiful face,” he said, “I’m glad to meet you. You are well, I hope?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, I’m well.”
The men sat down. “She makes it formal whether she wants to or not. Every meal is a kind of occasion,” Adam said.
“Don’t talk like that,” she said. “It isn’t true.”
“Doesn’t it feel like a party to you, Samuel?” he asked.
“It does so, and I can tell you there’s never been such a candidate for a party as I am. And my children—they’re worse. My boy Tom wanted to come today. He’s spoiling to get off the ranch.”
Samuel suddenly realized that he was making his speech last to prevent silence from falling on the table. He paused, and the silence dropped. Cathy looked down at her plate while she ate a sliver of roast lamb. She looked up as she put it between her small sharp teeth. Her wide-set eyes communicated nothing. Samuel shivered.
“It isn’t cold, is it?” Adam asked.
“Cold? No. A goose walked over my grave, I guess.”
“Oh, yes, I know that feeling.”
The silence fell again. Samuel waited for some speech to start up, knowing in advance that it would not.
“Do you like our valley, Mrs. Trask?”
“What? Oh, yes.”
“If it isn’t impertinent to ask, when is your baby due?”
“In about six weeks,” Adam said. “My wife is one of those paragons—a woman who does not talk very much.”
“Sometimes a silence tells the most,” said Samuel, and he saw Cathy’s eyes leap up and down again, and it seemed to him that the scar on her forehead grew darker. Something had flicked her the way you’d flick a horse with the braided string popper on a buggy whip. Samuel couldn’t recall what he had said that had made her give a small inward start. He felt a tenseness coming over him that was somewhat like the feeling he had just before the water wand pulled down, an awareness of something strange and strained. He glanced at Adam and saw that he was looking raptly at his wife. Whatever was strange was not strange to Adam. His face had happiness on it.
Cathy was chewing a piece of meat, chewing with her front teeth. Samuel had never seen anyone chew that way before. And when she had swallowed, her little tongue flicked around her lips. Samuel’s mind repeated, “Something—something—can’t find what it is. Something wrong,” and the silence hung on the table.