“No. I don’t want them.”

“Oh, you’ll change. You’re tired now, but you’ll change. And I’ll tell you now—this birth was quicker and easier than I’ve seen ever in my life.”

The eyes moved from his face. “I don’t want them. I want you to cover the windows and take the light away.”

“It’s weariness. In a few days you’ll feel so different you won’t remember.”

“I’ll remember. Go away. Take them out of the room. Send Adam in.”

Samuel was caught by her tone. There was no sickness, no weariness, no softness. His words came out without his will. “I don’t like you,” he said and wished he could gather the words back into his throat and into his mind. But his words had no effect on Cathy.

“Send Adam in,” she said.

In the little living room Adam looked vaguely at his sons and went quickly into the bedroom and shut the door. In a moment came the sound of tapping. Adam was nailing the blankets over the windows again.

Lee brought coffee to Samuel. “That’s a bad-looking hand you have there,” he said.

“I know. I’m afraid it’s going to give me trouble.”

“Why did she do it?”

“I don’t know. She’s a strange thing.”

Lee said, “Mr. Hamilton, let me take care of that. You could lose an arm.”

The life went out of Samuel. “Do what you want, Lee. A frightened sorrow has closed down over my heart. I wish I were a child so I could cry. I’m too old to be afraid like this. And I’ve not felt such despair since a bird died in my hand by a flowing water long ago.”

Lee left the room and shortly returned, carrying a small ebony box carved with twisting dragons. He sat by Samuel and from his box took a wedge-shaped Chinese razor. “It will hurt,” he said softly.

“I’ll try to bear it, Lee.”

The Chinese bit his lips, feeling the inflicted pain in himself while he cut deeply into the hand, opened the flesh around the toothmarks front and back, and trimmed the ragged flesh away until good red blood flowed from every wound. He shook a bottle of yellow emulsion labeled Hall’s Cream Salve and poured it into the deep cuts. He saturated a handkerchief with the salve and wrapped the hand. Samuel winced and gripped the chair arm with his good hand.

“It’s mostly carbolic acid,” Lee said. “You can smell it.”

“Thank you, Lee. I’m being a baby to knot up like this.”

“I don’t think I could have been so quiet,” said Lee. “I’ll get you another cup of coffee.”

He came back with two cups and sat down by Samuel. “I think I’ll go away,” he said. “I never went willingly to a slaughter house.”

Samuel stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. The words came out.”

Samuel shivered. “Lee, men are fools. I guess I hadn’t thought about it, but Chinese men are fools too.”