Cal felt pleasantly excited. He found another implement, another secret tool, to use for any purpose he needed. He studied Aron, saw his quivering lips, but he noticed in time the flaring nostrils. Aron would cry, but sometimes, pushed to tears, Aron would fight too. And when Aron cried and fought at the same time he was dangerous. Nothing could hurt him and nothing could stop him. Once Lee had held him in his lap, clasping his still flailing fists to his sides, until after a long time he relaxed. And his nostrils had flared then.

Cal put his new tool away. He could bring it out anytime, and he knew it was the sharpest weapon he had found. He would inspect it at his ease and judge just when and how much to use it.

He made his decision almost too late. Aron leaped at him and the limp body of the rabbit slashed against his face. Cal jumped back and cried, “I was just joking. Honest, Aron, it was only a joke.”

Aron stopped. Pain and puzzlement were on his face. “I don’t like that joke,” he said, and he sniffled and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

Cal came close to him and hugged him and kissed him on the cheek. “I won’t do it any more,” he said.

The boys trudged along silently for a while. The light of day began to withdraw. Cal looked over his shoulder at a thunderhead sailing blackly over the mountains on the nervous March wind. “Going to storm,” he said. “Going to be a bastard.” Aron said, “Did you really hear those men?”

“Maybe I only thought I did,” Cal said quickly. “Jesus, look at that cloud!”

Aron turned around to look at the black monster. It ballooned in great dark rolls above, and beneath it drew a long trailing skirt of rain, and as they looked the cloud rumbled and flashed fire. Borne on the wind, the cloudburst drummed hollowly on the fat wet hills across the valley and moved out over the flat lands. The boys turned and ran for home, and the cloud boomed at their backs and the lightning shattered the air into quaking pieces. The cloud caught up with them, and the first stout drops plopped on the ground out of the riven sky. They could smell the sweet odor of ozone. Running, they sniffed the thunder smell.

As they raced across the country road and onto the wheel tracks that led to their own home draw the water struck them. The rain fell in sheets and in columns. Instantly they were soaked through, and their hair plastered down on their foreheads and streamed into their eyes, and the turkey feathers at their temples bent over with the weight of water.

Now that they were as wet as they could get the boys stopped running. There was no reason to run for cover. They looked at each other and laughed for joy. Aron wrung out the rabbit and tossed it in the air and caught it and threw it to Cal. And Cal, feeling silly, put it around his neck with the head and hind feet under his chin. Both boys leaned over and laughed hysterically. The rain roared on the oak trees in the home draw and the wind disturbed their high dignity.

2

The twins came in sight of the ranch buildings in time to see Lee, his head through the center hole of a yellow oilskin poncho, leading a strange horse and a flimsy rubber-tired buggy toward the shed. “Somebody’s here,” said Cal. “Will you look at that rig?”

They began to run again, for there was a certain deliciousness about visitors. Near the steps they slowed down, moved cautiously around the house, for there was a certain fearsomeness about visitors too. They went in the back way and stood dripping in the kitchen. They heard voices in the living room—their father’s voice and another, a man’s voice. And then a third voice stiffened their stomachs and rippled a little chill up their spines. It was a woman’s voice. These boys had had very little experience with women. They tiptoed into their own room and stood looking at each other.

“Who do you ’spose it is?” Cal asked.

An emotion like a light had burst in Aron. He wanted to shout, “Maybe it’s our mother. Maybe she’s come back.” And then he remembered that she was in Heaven and people do not come back from there. He said, “I don’t know. I’m going to put on dry clothes.”

The boys put on dry clean clothes, which were exact replicas of the sopping clothes they were taking off. They took off the wet turkey feathers and combed their hair back with their fingers. And all the while they could hear the voices, mostly low pitched, and then the high woman’s voice, and once they froze, listening, for they heard a child’s voice—a girl’s voice—and this was such an excitement that they did not even speak of hearing it.

Silently they edged into the hall and crept toward the door to the living room. Cal turned the doorknob very, very slowly and lifted it up so that no creak would betray them.

Only the smallest crack was open when Lee came in the back door, shuffled along the hall, getting out of his poncho, and caught them there. “Lilly boy peek?” he said in pidgin, and when Cal closed the door and the latch clicked Lee said quickly, “Your father’s home. You’d better go in.”

Aron whispered hoarsely, “Who else is there?”

“Just some people going by. The rain drove them in.” Lee put his hand over Cal’s on the doorknob and turned it and opened the door.

“Boys come long home,” he said and left them there, exposed in the opening.

Adam cried, “Come in, boys! Come on in!”

The two carried their heads low and darted glances at the strangers and shuffled their feet. There was a man in city clothes and a woman in the fanciest clothes ever. Her duster and hat and veil lay on a chair beside her, and she seemed to the boys to be clad entirely in black silk and lace. Black lace even climbed up little sticks and hugged her throat. That was enough for one day, but it wasn’t all. Beside the woman sat a girl, a little younger maybe than the twins, but not much. She wore a blue-checked sunbonnet with lace around the front. Her dress was flowery, and a little apron with pockets was tied around her middle. Her skirt was turned back, showing a petticoat of red knitted yarn with tatting around the edge. The boys could not see her face because of the sunbonnet, but her hands were folded in her lap, and it was easy to see the little gold seal ring she wore on her third finger.