“Nan,” he said slowly, “do you know how many people there are in the world?”
“Millions and millions, Len.”
“Funny, ain’t it?”
“What is funny about it, Len?”
“That out of all that millions of people, you are the only one who—do you still believe I didn’t kill Prentice?”
“I know you didn’t, Len.”
“That’s fine.”
He clasped his hands around his knees and looked out across the Broken Hills.
“When I was in the penitentiary I used to long for the hills and the old cow-towns, Nan. I dreamed of ’em every night. There was the sunrise in the cow-camp, with waddies saddlin’ cold broncs, the camp cook and his big black pot of coffee. There was the round-up. Hard-ridin’ days; wild nights, when it was all over. The dances at the ranch-house. I could lay there on my bunk and hear the fiddlers and the caller. I could laze along through the hills, where the wind riffled the tall grass, straddlin’ a dream horse, and see the cattle lift their drippin’ jaws from the water-holes. Night after night I’ve dreamed it all over, waitin’ for the day when I’d be free to come back to it all. But it ain’t like my dreams, Nan. I thought I was bad off in the pen, but I—I wish I’d stayed.”
“You wish you hadn’t come back, Len?”