“Thank you.”

“I’ll be glad to do it for you,” said Will.

Adam asked, “How is your mother holding up?”

Will leaned back in his chair and an affectionate smile came on his face. “She’s a remarkable woman,” he said. “She’s like a rock. I think back on all the hard times we had, and we had plenty of them. My father wasn’t very practical. He was always off in the clouds or buried in a book. I think my mother held us together and kept the Hamiltons out of the poorhouse.”

“She’s a fine woman,” Adam said.

“Not only fine. She’s strong. She stands on her two feet. She’s a tower of strength. Did you come back to Olive’s house after the funeral?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Well over a hundred people did. And my mother fried all that chicken and saw that everybody had enough.”

“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.”