“Business,” he said. “Just here between trains. I want to talk to you.”

She led him back to her kitchen and dining-room combined, a warm little room papered with flowers. Automatically she poured a cup of coffee and placed it for him and put the sugar bowl and the cream pitcher in front of it.

“Have you seen Mother?” she asked.

“I’m just here over trains,” he said gruffly. “Dessie, is it true you want to go back to the ranch?”

“I was thinking of it.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

She smiled uncertainly. “Why not? What’s wrong with that? Tom’s lonely down there.”

“You’ve got a nice business here,” he said.

“I haven’t any business here,” she replied. “I thought you knew that.”

“I don’t want you to go,” he repeated sullenly.

Her smile was wistful and she tried her best to put a little mockery in her manner. “My big brother is masterful. Tell Dessie why not.”

“It’s too lonely down there.”

“It won’t be as lonely with the two of us.”

Will pulled at his lips angrily. He blurted, “Tom’s not himself. You shouldn’t be alone with him.”

“Isn’t he well? Does he need help?”

Will said, “I didn’t want to tell you—I don’t think Tom’s ever got over—the death. He’s strange.”

She smiled affectionately. “Will, you’ve always thought he was strange. You thought he was strange when he didn’t like business.”

“That was different. But now he’s broody. He doesn’t talk. He goes walking alone in the hills at night. I went out to see him and—he’s been writing poetry—pages of it all over the table.”

“Didn’t you ever write poetry, Will?”

“I did not.”

“I have,” said Dessie. “Pages and pages of it all over the table.”

“I don’t want you to go.”

“Let me decide,” she said softly. “I’ve lost something. I want to try to find it again.”

“You’re talking foolish.”

She came around the table and put her arms around his neck. “Dear brother,” she said, “please let me decide.”

He went angrily out of the house and barely caught his train.

[2]

Tom met Dessie at the King City station. She saw him out of the train window, scanning every coach for her. He was burnished, his face shaved so close that its darkness had a shine like polished wood. His red mustache was clipped. He wore a new Stetson hat with a flat crown, a tan Norfolk jacket with a belt buckle of mother-of-pearl. His shoes glinted in the noonday light so that it was sure he had gone over them with his handkerchief just before the train arrived. His hard collar stood up against his strong red neck, and he wore a pale blue knitted tie with a horseshoe tie pin. He tried to conceal his excitement by clasping his rough brown hands in front of him.

Dessie waved wildly out the window, crying, “Here I am, Tom, here I am!” though she knew he couldn’t hear her over the grinding wheels of the train as the coach slid past him. She climbed down the steps and saw him looking frantically about in the wrong direction. She smiled and walked up behind him.