"The way of the Lord can be mighty strange sometimes." "Do you know where l might find water?" "Guess I could allow you some of what I got left." "I am grateful." "Can you tell me is it far to crossroads?" "Stranger, are you?" "Take my advice." "Keep it that way." "I tell you, he tried to attack me." "Even grabbed at the horse when I wouldn't stop." "You say that he was a Chinese?" "He had their kind of eyes, but he was tall, tall as you and drunk." "Well, I'll sure keep an eye out for him." "If I were a man, I'd ride out after him right now." "A woman can't sleep safe in her bed with their kind around." "At least Mr. Brown and his family have the sense to stay to themselves." "Don't try to mix." "Mrs. Hawkins, you know I can't ride off until Sheriff Grogan gets back into town." "Sheriff Grogan." "Drought sure ain't wilted her tongue, eh, Mitch?" "She's been dried up so long, she probably don't even notice." "Finish with the loading while I tend some business across the street." "Yes, sir." "Hey, mister, you feel all right?" "Look." "Looks like Miss Hawkins'  Chinaman's gonna walk right in the front door for us here." "You looking for somebody, boy?" "What's the matter?" "Can't you hear me?" "Hey, what's the matter with him?" "Maybe he can't talk." "Drink of water." "Looks to me like you've had enough to drink already." "is there somewhere I can rest?" "Yeah." "You can get all the rest you need in jail." "Get him!" "You need help?" "You see a Chinaman come through here?" "You should have seen him fight, Daddy." "He even used his feet." "Not dirty like some, though." "But jumping up and high like this." "They most likely got him in jail by now." "Only thing scarcer than water in that town is understanding." "l think he was sick, Daddy." "Sick and fighting like that?" "I doubt it." "Maybe he was a magic man." "Boy, you sure get some notions, don't you?" "Look." "Don't speak unless you spoke to." "I'll answer any questions." "Afternoon, Sheriff Grogan." "Caleb." "Coming out our way?" "No. I just found a drifter dead off his horse." "Bad water, I figured." "He just passed through here yesterday looking for a drink." "Water's just about turned to all mud everywhere." "Be dust if we don't get some rain." "Well, then we'll all be drifters." "You got any relatives to go to?" "We'll stick it out here." "You can't drink sand, Caleb." "Ain't no man going to tell you what to do or where to live ever." "Mama!" "Mama, they're back." "How you all?" "Sure is hot." "For you, Juliet, some pretty ribbon for your pretty hair." "Daddy, I think we should unload the wagon now." "What's wrong with after dinner?" "What is it, Daniel?" "He's sick." "He needs help." "Law's looking for him." "Daniel, you know we can't afford to have people snooping around here." "It wasn't his fault." "They started it." "What you gonna do?" "Just turn your back on a sick man?" "Let's get him inside." "Discover harmony within." "Avoid discord with others." "Daniel." "Yes?" "You give that sow some extra water." "It's been awful hot today." "Mama says to give the sow some extra." "All right." "It sure is hot." "Each time you stop, you got to start again." "Just keep at it steady." "You won't feel it so." "Your daddy teach you that?" "Never knew my daddy." "Then who?" "Taught myself." "Didn't you have any brothers or sisters?" "Nope." "Weren't you lonely?" "Never had time." "I can feel one of them moving." "It'll be soon now." "He keeps trying to say something." "My pouch." "He keeps his magic in here." "Please put this in hot water." "Daddy." "His arm." "Look." "There's only one kind of man I know who wears another man's brand." "You did right to help him, son." "He's got to be around here someplace." "Unless he got help." "So you let him get away." "A skinny little Chinaman." "Skinny?" "He was as tall as I am." "Meaner than a cat in water." "Just ask Mrs. Hawkins." "According to Mrs. Hawkins everybody has tried to attack her at one time or the other." "Never did see a widow lady with such coarse imagination." "I think that Chinaman's trouble." "Stock around here are dying for lack of good water." "That's real trouble." "Well, there's charges against him." "We've let others go their way under worse suspicions." "Yeah, you have." "Men wear shirts at my table, Daniel." "Grasshopper, are you fishing in our lily pond?" "No, master." "l see something which puzzles me." "Good." "Tell me." "The stick is straight, yet in the water it seems to bend." "That is not a puzzle, grasshopper. lt is only something you do not yet know." "is what I see so unimportant?" "Do you not know that what you see is made of reflections sent back to your eyes like a ball thrown against a wall?" "But why does the stick seem to bend?" "The same ball is thrown against two different walls." "The water and the air." "Your eye is deceived." "I'm sorry, master." "I still do not understand." "Look closer." "You will see some things clearer." "Perhaps you will see other things you do not know at all but the puzzle, grasshopper, that is to find a way so that others may see you." "Daniel, there's not enough stove wood." "Yes, ma'am." "Daddy, riders coming." "You got to hide." "Come on. I'll help you." "Never mind this." "Get the sow." "Come on." "We've got to move the bed." "You'll be all right." "Just keep quiet till we let you out." "Where's your daddy?" "Around back." "Go tend dishes." "Deputy Mitchell." "A little hot for that kind of work, ain't it?" "It's got to be done." "What's your business here?" "Well, I'm looking for a Chinaman." "You haven't seen one around, have you?" "We like to keep to ourselves." "Mind if I have a look around?" "l mind." "Go on." "Look." "You folks sure do work hard." "You haven't got time to finish breakfast." "Too hot for a real appetite." "Satisfied?" "Caleb, how come your cow ain't all dried up like everybody else's around here?" "Guess we're luckier than some." "They grabbed you from both sides like this." "You threw the deputy off like this, and Parkes like this." "Then Mitchell, he drew his gun." "He was plenty mad but you jumped right up in the air and knocked the gun out of his hand." "Then you knocked him down." "Then you ran." "Don't you remember?" "No." "Not any of it?" "Tell me why was it necessary to put a pig with me in the cellar?" "It was a joke?" "Whenever she comes into her time Daddy takes her over the hill in the night and turns her in with Mr. Tompkins' old boar." "Old Tompkins don't know it and that old boar don't care that he ain't paid for it." "When you get better, will you teach me to fight like that?" "We learn these things to teach the body to become one with the mind." "lt must not be used against others." "You used it against others." "I was sick." "My body and my mind were in discord." "I don't understand you." "I thought we had something in common when I saw them marks on your arm." "What did you think?" "That you was a slave once like I was." "About the time I was Daniel's age, I ran away." "They whipped me with my own chains, but I still kept running." "I won't give you away." "Are you still bound?" "Yes." "I am a priest." "If you a priest, then who put them marks on you?" "I did." "It's a foolish thing for a man to brand himself." "l'd give anything to be rid of mine." "And I to keep mine." "Makes things bigger." "What you got there?" "A glass." "Magic glass, Daddy." "Have you never seen such a glass before?" "Then you may keep it." "l can?" "Perhaps with it you will see some things more clearly and learn other things which you do not know at all." "Give it back." "He said I can keep it, Daddy." "He don't need what I can't give him and he don't need to know what I can't teach him." "I am in your debt." "I do not wish to offend you." "You do offend me." "Inside me there's a man." "He wants to be, wants to do." "But he's locked up tight inside this black skin and all the wanting in the world can't get him out." "You look to others for your own freedom?" "Where else am I going to find it?" "What have you found?" "A spider, master. lt has trapped a fly." "Should I destroy his web?" "Why?" "So it will not make a prison for other living things that were free." "Look more closely, grasshopper." "Were you to destroy this web, would not the spider, knowing no other way..." "...build another?" "Yes, but I cannot kill the spider." "Look more closely still." "is not the spider also trapped by its own web?" "Yes, but if I do nothing it will capture more living things, make them prisoner, and kill them." "You are concerned, then, with the fly to which nature has given wings that it may move about freely?" "It is cruel to see it made a prisoner." "Still, you do not see." "Which is truly the prisoner?" "The fly, which, moving freely, enters unknown danger or the spider, which, having spun its web, remains never knowing the pleasure or the danger of the fly?" "Mama says you'll be strong as soon as you start eating regular again." "I will leave soon." "Perhaps tomorrow." "Where will you go?" "I do not know." "Back to China?" "No, Daniel." "Daddy was a little boy when they took him from his home and brought him here." "Where was your home?" "Don't know." "We don't know where l come from either." "Mama, that song." "Can you sing it?" "Maybe Mr. Caine knows where it comes from." "It was handed down from my grandmother to my mother to me." "I have never heard such a song." "It is beautiful." "I don't even know what the words mean or if they're words anymore but we keep it because it's all we have." "If only it would rain." "You know, I just can't get that cow out of my mind." "I'll bet you those people are out stealing honest folks' water at night." "You lost your Chinaman." "Now you're starting in on Caleb." "You got a bur under your blanket, boy." "Looking for somebody to kick ain't gonna lose it." "I think we ought to go look around out there." "You do, huh?" "You know what, Grogan?" "You were pretty rough at one time." "But now you're getting old and lazy and slow." "The only thing that keeps that badge on you is a reputation." "I used to be like you, Mitch." "Fired up, on the move, action." "That's what I liked." "Youth and stupidity." "You gotta learn to relax." "You get all tensed up, you spoil your reflexes." "You need your sleep." "Can't." "I don't like to see my man troubled so." "I kept my place all these years." "Never said a hard word to a white man." "Never asked a crust of bread of no man." "I don't like strangers with our family." "He's getting better." "The longer he stays, the surer it is he's going to find out about the water." "Caleb, we got all that water." "And other peoples are in need." "We might be in need one day." "Water's the only thing we got keeps us free." "Caleb!" "He was listening." "Were you?" "l was not listening..." "...but I heard." "l'm glad." "It's time the secret ended." "What are you doing?" "Put them shackles on him." "Caleb, please. I can't do that." "Put them on." "ln the morning, I know what to do." "Caleb, please." "Will you not trust me to say nothing..." "...and to stay until morning?" "l told you before trust nobody you don't get hurt." "Good morning." "Are you all right?" "I am better." "Don't hold it against him." "The things he put on you." "He didn't know what else to do." "l know." "From the day he was freed he swore he'll never trust anybody but Caleb Brown, ever." "That is a hard way to live." "He's a good man, my Caleb." "He been studying over it all night." "Whatever in his mind it'll be right." "He has not told you." "No need to." "Whatever Caleb decide, that's what we going to do." "Mama." "Morning, Daniel." "Morning, Juliet." "If I takes you in the wagon to the mountains will you give your word to say nothing about the water?" "If that is what you wish." "Juliet, go get his things." "What if he gets sick again along the way?" "Daniel, go eat some breakfast." "l don't want any." "He'll be all right." "And what if he isn't?" "What if he dies?" "It'll be just like you killed him." "I got to take care of my own first, son." "You'll understand when you're a father." "I don't want to live here anymore." "I'm going with you." "That is not possible." "But I want to." "I am sorry." "He helped me in town." "I would like to repay him." "Come here, son." "It would please me if you would take it." "My daddy taught me don't take nothing from nobody." "We got a long way. lt's time to go." "Where you going, China?" "You got no call to point that gun." "Mind your own business." "You remember how to do that, don't you?" "Been here all along, Caleb?" "He was sick." "We nursed him." "is he better now?" "Good." "I think I can settle things with you right here." "I have no wish to fight with you." "I ain't asking." "Go on, Mr. Caine." "You can beat him." "I do not wish to beat him." "l wish to harm no one." "l didn't feel a thing." "You're real tricky, ain't you?" "Caleb, no!" "Let me free." "Look out!" "Mama!" "Leave him be." "Caleb." "Go get me some water, son." "He does not know how to fall." "They never do." "That's the Chinaman." "He was just fixing to run off." "You're the one that's leaving, Mitch." "Try another town." "There's only room here for one sheriff and that job's already occupied." "Now get." "He ain't going to rest easy now he knows this man's here." "Mitch won't bother you, Caleb." "He likes to talk, and he likes to swagger but he don't like to lose." "Where did you get that water, Mrs. Brown?" "From our well." "I guess Mitch was right about that too." "You know, now everybody's going to know." "It was bound to happen, honey." "Your land, your water. lt's not illegal for a man to hog it to himself." "What we going to do now, Daddy?" "What would you do?" "Are you not a free man to choose his own way?" "If there was a way, I'd do it but if I open up that well now there's some that'll come and take this place apart piece by piece." "I can't deny that." "Of course, I could bring my wagon over tonight filled with empty barrels." "No one would have to know where the water came from." "Tonight, then." "If you ever come back this way, I'd still like to learn to fight like that." "There is much more to be learned than fighting." "I wish I could give you something." "You have." "So has your father." "He's taught me something about freedom and what it means to lose it."