“It’s a strange life,” Gin suddenly said. She hugged her knees and rocked backward, staring at the sky. “People trying to make themselves crazy with bottles of poison, when everything is all right as it is.”
“What’s that?” Wally looked worried.
“It’s a strange life,” she repeated. “Everything is peculiar. Don’t you think so? Really, don’t you?”
Flo sighed audibly. “Leave her alone; she’s off again.”
“But it is,” Gin persisted. A messianic zeal possessed her: she must convey the message in her soul or die unappeased. The moon, the bushes, the beautiful silent horses, all waited with an understanding patience while she spoke to these scoffers. “It is,” she said again. “Here I am sitting by a fire out in the middle of Nature, wearing pants and drinking tequila. I mean here I am, and ten years ago—five years ago—I was living in cities and wearing skirts and now here I am. It’s wonderful.”
“That’s all right,” said Tom. “Of course it’s wonderful.”
“It’s so peculiar. Can’t you see?” Her eyes filled with tears; her soul filled with a passionate sensibility of life and all its lovely factors; the moon, the fire, the horses.... She stretched out on the ground and put her head on her arm, thinking it over.
Tom rose to his feet, leaned over her, and pulled her gently by the arm. “Come on, Gin. Come on back to town with me and we’ll get some more funny thoughts.”
She stumbled after him in the dark and let him untie the horse and help her up to the saddle. They cantered most of the way home; as they swung through the narrow streets at the edge of town she peered through the windows, catching quick flashes of lit rooms with quiet women sewing, or standing at stoves, or washing dishes. Suddenly she felt desolate and lonely, envious of these people who had homes and dull quiet duties.
Tom waved her in to the living-room while he led the horses to the corral. “You wait there and think about life.”