Joe said plaintively, “But what will I do here alone?”

Samuel was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Joe, do you love me?”

“Why, sure.”

“If you heard I’d committed some great crime would you turn me over to the police?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Would you?”

“No.”

“All right then. In my basket, under my clothes, you’ll find two books—new, so be gentle with them. It’s two volumes by a man the world is going to hear from. You can start reading if you want and it will raise up your lid a little. It’s called The Principles of Psychology and it’s by an Eastern man named William James. No relative to the train robber. And, Joe, if you ever let on about the books I’ll run you off the ranch. If your mother ever found out I spent the money on them she’d run me off the ranch.”

Tom led a saddled horse to him. “Can I read it next?”

“Yes,” said Samuel, and he slipped his leg lightly over the saddle. “Come on, Lee.”

The Chinese wanted to break into a gallop but Samuel restrained him. “Take it easy, Lee. Birthing takes longer than you think, mostly.”

For a time they rode in silence, and then Lee said, “I’m sorry you bought those books. I have the condensed form, in one volume, the textbook. You could have borrowed it.”

“Have you now? Do you have many books?”

“Not many here—thirty or forty. But you’re welcome to any of them you haven’t read.”

“Thank you, Lee. And you may be sure I’ll look the first moment I can. You know, you could talk to my boys. Joe’s a little flighty but Tom’s all right and it would do him good.”

“It’s a hard bridge to cross, Mr. Hamilton. Makes me timid to talk to a new person, but I’ll try if you say so.”

They walked the horses rapidly toward the little draw of the Trask place. Samuel said, “Tell me, how is it with the mother?”

“I’d rather you saw for yourself and thought for yourself,” Lee said. “You know when a man lives alone as much as I do, his mind can go off on an irrational tangent just because his social world is out of kilter.”

“Yes, I know. But I’m not lonely and I’m on a tangent too. But maybe not the same one.”

“You don’t think I imagine it then?”

“I don’t know what it is, but I’ll tell you for your reassurance that I’ve a sense of strangeness.”

“I guess that’s all it is with me too,” said Lee. He smiled. “I’ll tell you how far it got with me though. Since I’ve come here I find myself thinking of Chinese fairy tales my father told me. We Chinese have a well-developed demonology.”

“You think she is a demon?”

“Of course not,” said Lee. “I hope I’m a little beyond such silliness. I don’t know what it is. You know, Mr. Hamilton, a servant develops an ability to taste the wind and judge the climate of the house he works in. And there’s a strangeness here. Maybe that’s what makes me remember my father’s demons.”