“But she knows where you are.”

“Sure she knows. But I’ll ride home tonight. It doesn’t matter the time. If you’d like to ask me to supper I’d be glad. And when do you want me to start on the wells?”

“Now—as soon as you can.”

“You know it’s no cheap thing, indulging yourself with water. I’d have to charge you fifty cents or more a foot, depending on what we find down there. It can run into money.”

“I have the money. I want the wells. Look, Mr. Hamilton—”

“ ‘Samuel’ would be easier.”

“Look, Samuel, I mean to make a garden of my land. Remember my name is Adam. So far I’ve had no Eden, let alone been driven out.”

“It’s the best reason I ever heard for making a garden,” Samuel exclaimed. He chuckled. “Where will the orchard be?”

Adam said, “I won’t plant apples. That would be looking for accidents.”

“What does Eve say to that? She has a say, you remember. And Eves delight in apples.”

“Not this one.” Adam’s eyes were shining. “You don’t know this Eve. She’ll celebrate my choice. I don’t think anyone can know her goodness.”

“You have a rarity. Right now I can’t recall any greater gift.”

They were coming near to the entrance to the little side valley in which was the Sanchez house. They could see the rounded green tops of the great live oaks.

“Gift,” Adam said softly. “You can’t know. No one can know. I had a gray life, Mr. Hamilton—Samuel. Not that it was bad compared to other lives, but it was nothing. I don’t know why I tell you this.”

“Maybe because I like to hear.”

“My mother—died—before my memory. My stepmother was a good woman but troubled and ill. My father was a stern, fine man—maybe a great man.”

“You couldn’t love him?”

“I had the kind of feeling you have in church, and not a little fear in it.”

Samuel nodded. “I know—and some men want that.” He smiled ruefully. “I’ve always wanted the other. Liza says it’s the weak thing in me.”

“My father put me in the army, in the West, against the Indians.”

“You told me. But you don’t think like a military man.”

“I wasn’t a good one. I seem to be telling you everything.”

“You must want to. There’s always a reason.”

“A soldier must want to do the things we had to do—or at least be satisfied with them. I couldn’t find good enough reasons for killing men and women, nor understand the reasons when they were explained.”

They rode on in silence for a time. Adam went on, “I came out of the army like dragging myself muddy out of a swamp. I wandered for a long time before going home to a remembered place I did not love.”

“Your father?”

“He died, and home was a place to sit around or work around, waiting for death the way you might wait for a dreadful picnic.”

“Alone?”

“No, I have a brother.”

“Where is he—waiting for the picnic?”

“Yes—yes, that’s exactly what. Then Cathy came. Maybe I will tell you some time when I can tell and you want to hear.”

“I’ll want to hear,” Samuel said. “I eat stories like grapes.”

“A kind of light spread out from her. And everything changed color. And the world opened out. And a day was good to awaken to. And there were no limits to anything. And the people of the world were good and handsome. And I was not afraid any more.”

“I recognize it,” Samuel said. “That’s an old friend of mine. It never dies but sometimes it moves away, or you do. Yes, that’s my acquaintance—eyes, nose, mouth, and hair.”

“All this coming out of a little hurt girl.”

“And not out of you?”

“Oh, no, or it would have come before. No, Cathy brought it, and it lives around her. And now I’ve told you why I want the wells. I have to repay somehow for value received. I’m going to make a garden so good, so beautiful, that it will be a proper place for her to live and a fitting place for her light to shine on.”

Samuel swallowed several times, and he spoke with a dry voice out of a pinched-up throat. “I can see my duty,” he said. “I can see it plainly before me if I am any kind of man, any kind of friend to you.”

“What do you mean?”

Samuel said satirically, “It’s my duty to take this thing of yours and kick it in the face, then raise it up and spread slime on it thick enough to blot out its dangerous light.” His voice grew strong with vehemence. “I should hold it up to you muck-covered and show you its dirt and danger. I should warn you to look closer until you can see how ugly it really is. I should ask you to think of inconstancy and give you examples. I should give you Othello’s handkerchief. Oh, I know I should. And I should straighten out your tangled thoughts, show you that the impulse is gray as lead and rotten as a dead cow in wet weather. If I did my duty well, I could give you back your bad old life and feel good about it, and welcome you back to the musty membership in the lodge.”

“Are you joking? Maybe I shouldn’t have told—”

“It is the duty of a friend. I had a friend who did the duty once for me. But I’m a false friend. I’ll get no credit for it among my peers. It’s a lovely thing, preserve it, and glory in it. And I’ll dig your wells if I have to drive my rig to the black center of the earth. I’ll squeeze water out like juice from an orange.”