“What did you want to go and kill him for?” she cried.
He considered this: what had he wanted to kill that red bird for?
“He was such a pretty little fellow,” she said, but instead of a rebuke, this seemed to him a reason.
“Yes,” he seized it eagerly. “That’s why. You want to get up close to ’em.”
“But if they’re dead....” she protested.
“You want to get up nearer to ’em,” he repeated. “Don’t you see? It’s the only way you can.”
She said nothing. She was walking before him now, and he watched her. She had braided her hair, and he liked the way the bright braids moved on her shoulders when she walked, and hung against the hollow of her waist. She must have braided her hair, he reflected, before he woke. Then he remembered the blanket which he had found folded across his shoulders. She must have found it, unstrapped it, covered him as he lay. He longed to let her know that he knew, but he could not bring himself to recall the time. “She seems to do everything so careful,” he thought, and remembered the red bird and tried to fathom her care for that. When she stooped to pick up a shining stone, he laughed out.
“See!” he said. “You want to pick up that stone to see it. Well, I wanted to kill the bird—to see it.”