“No. And that’s what I’m talking about. Come a few years and we’ll have the finest farm in this section. Two lonely old farts working our tails off. Then one of us will die off and the fine farm will belong to one lonely old fart, and then he’ll die off—”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Charles demanded. “Fellow can’t get comfortable. You make me itch. Get it out—what’s on your mind?”

“I’m not having any fun,” said Adam. “Or anyway I’m not having enough. I’m working too hard for what I’m getting, and I don’t have to work at all.”

“Well, why don’t you quit?” Charles shouted at him. “Why don’t you get the hell out? I don’t see any guards holding you. Go down to the South Seas and lay in a hammock if that’s what you want.”

“Don’t be cross,” said Adam quietly. “It’s like getting up. I don’t want to get up and I don’t want to stay down. I don’t want to stay here and I don’t want to go away.”

“You make me itch,” said Charles.

“Think about it, Charles. You like it here?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to live here all your life?”

“Yes.”

“Jesus, I wish I had it that easy. What do you suppose is the matter with me?”

“I think you’ve got knocker fever. Come in to the inn tonight and get it cured up.”

“Maybe that’s it,” said Adam. “But I never took much satisfaction in a whore.”

“It’s all the same,” Charles said. “You shut your eyes and you can’t tell the difference.”

“Some of the boys in the regiment used to keep a squaw around. I had one for a while.”

Charles turned to him with interest. “Father would turn in his grave if he knew you was squawing around. How was it?”

“Pretty nice. She’d wash my clothes and mend and do a little cooking.”

“I mean the other—how was that?”

“Good. Yes, good. And kind of sweet—kind of soft and sweet. Kind of gentle and soft.”

“You’re lucky she didn’t put a knife in you while you were asleep.”

“She wouldn’t. She was sweet.”

“You’ve got a funny look in your eye. I guess you were kind of gone on that squaw.”

“I guess I was,” said Adam.

“What happened to her?”

“Smallpox.”

“You didn’t get another one?”

Adam’s eyes were pained. “We piled them up like they were logs, over two hundred, arms and legs sticking out. And we piled brush on top and poured coal oil on.”

“I’ve heard they can’t stand smallpox.”

“It kills them,” said Adam. “You’re burning that bacon.”

Charles turned quickly back to the stove. “It’ll just be crisp,” he said, “I like it crisp.” He shoveled the bacon out on a plate and broke the eggs in the hot grease and they jumped and fluttered their edges to brown lace and made clucking sounds.

“There was a schoolteacher,” Charles said. “Prettiest thing you ever saw. Had little tiny feet. Bought all her clothes in New York. Yellow hair, and you never saw such little feet. Sang too, in the choir. Everybody took to going to church. Damn near stampeded getting into church. That was quite a while ago.”

“ ’Bout the time you wrote about thinking of getting married?”

Charles grinned. “I guess so. I guess there wasn’t a young buck in the county didn’t get the marrying fever.”

“What happened to her?”

“Well, you know how it is. The women got kind of restless with her here. They got together. First thing you knew they had her out. I heard she wore silk underwear. Too hoity toity. School board had her out halfway through the term. Feet no longer than that. Showed her ankles too, like it was an accident. Always showing her ankles.”

“Did you get to know her?” Adam asked.

“No. I only went to church. Couldn’t hardly get in. Girl that pretty’s got no right in a little town. Just makes people uneasy. Causes trouble.”

Adam said, “Remember that Samuels girl? She was real pretty. What happened to her?”

“Same thing. Just caused trouble. She went away. I heard she’s living in Philadelphia. Does dressmaking. I heard she gets ten dollars just for making one dress.”

“Maybe we ought to go away from here,” Adam said.

Charles said, “Still thinking of California?”

“I guess so.”

Charles’ temper tore in two. “I want you out of here!” he shouted. “I want you to get off the place. I’ll buy you or sell you or anything. Get out, you son of a bitch—” He stopped. “I guess I don’t mean that last. But goddam it, you make me nervous.”

“I’ll go,” said Adam.

3

In three months Charles got a colored picture postcard of the bay at Rio, and Adam had written on the back with a splottery pen, “It’s summer here when it’s winter there. Why don’t you come down?”

Six months later there was another card, from Buenos Aires. “Dear Charles—my God this is a big city. They speak French and Spanish both. I’m sending you a book.”

But no book came. Charles looked for it all the following winter and well into the spring. And instead of the book Adam arrived. He was brown and his clothes had a foreign look.