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is mother would not like it. She would feel the difference in him, as much as if he had read one of the books she kept away from him, books that were supposed to be for adults only. The difference would hurt her. He was being bad, like eating between meals. But to know what grownups knew....

He tightened his fists and looked down at the grass. "I'll play it some more."

The young man smiled, still pale and holding half his feelings back behind a dam. Then mesh with me a moment. Let me in.

He was in with the thought, feeling Ronny's confused consent, reassuring him by not thinking or looking around inside while sending out a single call, Purcell, Doc, that found the combination key to Ronny's guarded yesterdays and last nights and ten minutes agos. Ronny, I'll set that door, Purcell's memories, open for you. You can't close it, but feel like this about it—and he planted in a strong set, questioning, cool, open, a feeling of absorbing without words ... it will give information when you need it, like a dictionary.

The grownup straightened away from the fence, preparing to walk off. Behind a dam pressed grief and anger for the death of the man he called Purcell.

"And any time you want to be the old chief, at any age he lived, just make believe you are him."

Grief and anger pressed more strongly against the dam, and the man turned and left rapidly, letting his thoughts flicker and scatter through private memories that Ronny did not share, that no one shared, breaking thought contact with everyone so that the man could be alone in his own mind to have his feelings in private.

onny picked up the empty glass that had held his chocolate milk from the back steps where he had left it and went inside. As he stepped into the kitchen, he knew what another kitchen had looked like for a five-year-old child who had been Purcell ninety years ago. There had been an iron sink, and a brown-and-green-spotted faucet, and the glass had been heavier and transparent, like real glass.

Ronny reached up and put the colored plastic tumbler down.

"That was a nice young man, dear. What did he say to you?"

Ronny looked up at his mamma, comparing her with the remembered mamma of fifty years ago. He loved the other one, too.

"He tol' me he's glad I play Indian."

—KATHERINE MacLEAN