Swiftcurrent Creek first watering

"reverie."
he demanded of himself that he stand higher, taller, a thin man in tattered clothes that now hung too largely around the edges of him. "i'm sorry. i didn't — i did not mean to be gone so long."
rushing, a ragged brook; "i — saw you bleed. i saw that you left and i — i wanted more than to be sad for you. i wanted to be more."
and he had not come back more, but less. 
he touched the bone with a shaking paw.