"What do you want to say?" Lee asked a third time.
"I want my wife," Samuel cried. "No dreams, no ghosts, no foolishness. I want her here. They say miners take canaries into the pits to test the air. Liza has no truck with foolishness. And, Lee, if Liza sees a ghost, it's a ghost and not a fragment of a dream. If Liza feels trouble we'll bar the doors."
Lee got up and went to the laundry basket and looked down at the babies. He had to peer close, for the light was going fast. "They're sleeping," he said.
"They'll be squalling soon enough. Lee, will you hitch up the rig and drive to my place for Liza? Tell her I need her here. If Tom's still there, tell him to mind the place. If not, I'll send him in the morning. And if Liza doesn't want to come, tell her we need a woman's hand here and a woman's clear eyes. She'll know what you mean."
"I'll do it," said Lee. "Maybe we're scaring each other, like two children in the dark."
"I've thought of that," Samuel said. "And Lee, tell her I hurt my hand at the well head. Do not, for God's sake, tell her how it happened."
"I'll get some lamps lit and then I'll go," said Lee. "It will be a great relief to have her here."
"That it will, Lee. That it will. She'll let some light into this cellar hole."
After Lee drove away in the dark Samuel picked up a lamp in his left hand. He had to set it on the floor to turn the knob of the bedroom door. The room was in pitch-blackness, and the yellow lamplight streamed upward and did not light the bed.
Cathy's voice came strong and edged from the bed. "Shut the door. I do not want the light. Adam, go out! I want to be in the dark--alone."
Adam said hoarsely, "I want to stay with you."
"I do not want you."
"I will stay."
"Then stay. But don't talk any more. Please close the door and take the lamp away."
Samuel went back to the living room. He put the lamp on the table by the laundry basket and looked in on the small sleeping faces of the babies. Their eyes were pinched shut and they sniffled a little in discomfort at the light. Samuel put his forefinger down and stroked the hot foreheads. One of the twins opened his mouth and yawned prodigiously and settled back to sleep. Samuel moved the lamp and then went to the front door and opened it and stepped outside. The evening star was so bright that it seemed to flare and crumple as it sank toward the western mountains. The air was still, and Samuel could smell the day-heated sage. The night was very dark. Samuel started when he heard a voice speaking out of the blackness.
"How is she?"
"Who is it?" Samuel demanded.
"It's me, Rabbit." The man emerged and took form in the light from the doorway.
"The mother, Rabbit? Oh, she's fine."
"Lee said twins."
"That's right--twin sons. You couldn't want better. I guess Mr. Trask will tear the river up by the roots now. He'll bring in a crop of candy canes."
Samuel didn't know why he changed the subject. "Rabbit, do you know what we bored into today? A meteorite."
"What's that, Mr. Hamilton?"
"A shooting star that fell a million years ago."
"You did? Well, think of that! How did you hurt your hand?"
"I almost said on a shooting star." Samuel laughed. "But it wasn't that interesting. I pinched it in the tackle."
"Bad?"
"No, not bad."
"Two boys," said Rabbit. "My old lady will be jealous."
"Will you come inside and sit, Rabbit?"
"No, no, thank you. I'll get out to sleep. Morning seems to come earlier every year I live."
"That it does, Rabbit. Good night then."
Liza Hamilton arrived about four in the morning. Samuel was asleep in his chair, dreaming that he had gripped a red-hot bar of iron and could not let go. Liza awakened him and looked at his hand before she even glanced at the babies. While she did well the things he had done in a lumbering, masculine way, she gave him his orders and packed him off. He was to get up this instant, saddle Doxology, and ride straight to King City. No matter what time it was, he must wake up that good-for-nothing doctor and get his hand treated. If it seemed all right he could go home and wait. And it was a criminal thing to leave your last-born, and he little more than a baby himself, sitting there by a hole in the ground with no one to care for him. It was a matter which might even engage the attention of the Lord God himself.
If Samuel craved realism and activity, he got it. She had him off the place by dawn. His hand was bandaged by eleven, and he was in his own chair at his own table by five in the afternoon, sizzling with fever, and Tom was boiling a hen to make chicken soup for him.
For three days Samuel lay in bed, fighting the fever phantoms and putting names to them too, before his great strength broke down the infection and drove it caterwauling away."
Samuel looked up at Tom with clear eyes and said, "I'll have to get up," tried it and sat weakly back, chuckling--the sound he made when any force in the world defeated him. He had an idea that even when beaten he could steal a little victory by laughing at defeat. And Tom brought him chicken soup until he wanted to kill him. The lore had not died out of the world, and you will still find people who believe that soup will cure any hurt or illness and is no bad thing to have for the funeral either.
4
Liza stayed away a week. She cleaned the Trask house from the top clear down into the grain of the wooden floors. She washed everything she could bend enough to get into a tub and sponged the rest. She put the babies on a working basis and noted with satisfaction that they howled most of the time and began to gain weight. Lee she used like a slave since she didn't quite believe in him. Adam she ignored since she couldn't use him for anything. She did make him wash the windows and then did it again after he had finished.
Liza sat with Cathy just enough to come to the conclusion that she was a sensible girl who didn't talk very much or try to teach her grandmother to suck eggs. She also checked her over and found that she was perfectly healthy, not injured and not sick, and that she would never nurse the twins. "And just as well too," she said. "Those great lummoxes would chew a little thing like you to the bone." She forgot that she was smaller than Cathy and had nursed every one of her own children.
On Saturday afternoon Liza checked her work, left a list of instructions as long as her arm to cover every possibility from colic to an inroad of grease ants, packed her traveling basket, and had Lee drive her home.
She found her house a stable of filth and abomination and she set to cleaning it with the violence and disgust of a Hercules at labor. Samuel asked questions of her in flight.
How were the babies?
They were fine, growing.
How was Adam?
Well, he moved around as if he was alive but he left no evidence. The Lord in his wisdom gave money to very curious people, perhaps because they'd starve without.
How was Mrs. Trask?
Quiet, lackadaisical, like most rich Eastern women (Liza had never known a rich Eastern woman), but on the other hand docile and respectful. "And it's a strange thing," Liza said. "I can find no real fault with her save perhaps a touch of laziness, and yet I don't like her very much. Maybe it's that scar. How did she get it?"
"I don't know," said Samuel.
Liza leveled her forefinger like a pistol between his eyes. "I'll tell you something. Unbeknownst to herself, she's put a spell on her husband. He moons around her like a sick duck. I don't think he's given the twins a thorough good look yet."
Samuel waited until she went by again. He said, "Well, if she's lazy and he's moony, who's going to take care of the sweet babies? Twin boys take a piece of looking after."
Liza stopped in mid-swoop, drew a chair close to him, and sat, resting her hands on her knees. "Remember I've never held the truth lightly if you don't believe me," she said.
"I don't think you could lie, dearie," he said, and she smiled, thinking it a compliment.
"Well, what I'm to tell you might weigh a little heavy on y
our belief if you did not know that."
"Tell me."
"Samuel, you know that Chinese with his slanty eyes and his outlandish talk and that braid?"
"Lee? Sure I know him."
"Well, wouldn't you say offhand he was a heathen?"
"I don't know."
"Come now, Samuel, anybody would. But he's not." She straightened up.
"What is he?"
She tapped his arm with an iron finger. "A Presbyterian, and well up--well up, I say, when you dig it out of that crazy talk. Now what do you think of that?"
Samuel's voice was unsteady with trying to clamp his laughter in. "No!" he said.
"And I say yes. Well now, who do you think is looking after the twins? I wouldn't trust a heathen from here to omega--but a Presbyterian--he learned everything I told him."
"No wonder they're taking on weight," said Samuel.
"It's a matter for praise and it's a matter for prayer."
"We'll do it too," said Samuel. "Both."
5
For a week Cathy rested and gathered her strength. On Saturday of the second week of October she stayed in her bedroom all morning. Adam tried the door and found it locked.
"I'm busy," she called, and he went away.
Putting her bureau in order, he thought, for he could hear her opening drawers and closing them.
In the late afternoon Lee came to Adam where he sat on the stoop. "Missy say I go King City buy nursey bottle," he said uneasily.
"Well, do it then," said Adam. "She's your mistress."
"Missy say not come back mebbe Monday. Take--"
Cathy spoke calmly from the doorway. "He hasn't had a day off for a long time. A rest would do him good."
"Of course," said Adam. "I just didn't think of it. Have a good time. If I need anything I'll get one of the carpenters."
"Men go home, Sunday."
"I'll get the Indian. Lopez will help."
Lee felt Cathy's eyes on him. "Lopez dlunk. Find bottle whisky."
Adam said petulantly, "I'm not helpless, Lee. Stop arguing."
Lee looked at Cathy standing in the doorway. He lowered his eyelids. "Mebbe I come back late," he said, and he thought he saw two dark lines appear between her eyes and then disappear. He turned away. "Goo-by," he said.
Cathy went back to her room as the evening came down. At seven-thirty Adam knocked. "I've got you some supper, dear. It's not much." The door opened as though she had been standing waiting. She was dressed in her neat traveling dress, the jacket edged in black braid, black velvet lapels, and large jet buttons. On her head was a wide straw hat with a tiny crown; long jet-beaded hatpins held it on. Adam's mouth dropped open.
She gave him no chance to speak. "I'm going away now."
"Cathy, what do you mean?"
"I told you before."
"You didn't."
"You didn't listen. It doesn't matter."
"I don't believe you."
Her voice was dead and metallic. "I don't give a damn what you believe. I'm going."
"The babies--"
"Throw them in one of your wells."
He cried in panic, "Cathy, you're sick. You can't go--not from me--not from me."
"I can do anything to you. Any woman can do anything to you. You're a fool."
The word got through his haze. Without warning, his hands reached for her shoulders and he thrust her backward. As she staggered he took the key from the inside of the door, slammed the door shut, and locked it.
He stood panting, his ear close to the panel, and a hysterical sickness poisoned him. He could hear her moving quietly about. A drawer was opened, and the thought leaped in him--she's going to stay. And then there was a little click he could not place. His ear was almost touching the door.
Her voice came from so near that he jerked his head back. He heard richness in her voice. "Dear," she said softly, "I didn't know you would take it so. I'm sorry, Adam."
His breath burst hoarsely out of his throat. His hand trembled, trying to turn the key, and it fell out on the floor after he had turned it. He pushed the door open. She stood three feet away. In her right hand she held his .44 Colt, and the black hole in the barrel pointed at him. He took a step toward her, saw that the hammer was back.
She shot him. The heavy slug struck him in the shoulder and flattened and tore out a piece of his shoulderblade. The flash and roar smothered him, and he staggered back and fell to the floor. She moved slowly toward him, cautiously, as she might toward a wounded animal. He stared up into her eyes, which inspected him impersonally. She tossed the pistol on the floor beside him and walked out of the house.
He heard her steps on the porch, on the crisp dry oak leaves on the path, and then he could hear her no more. And the monotonous sound that had been there all along was the cry of the twins, wanting their dinner. He had forgotten to feed them.
Chapter 18
1
Horace Quinn was the new deputy sheriff appointed to look after things around the King City district. He complained that his new job took him away from his ranch too much. His wife complained even more, but the truth of the matter was that nothing much had happened in a criminal way since Horace had been deputy. He had seen himself making a name for himself and running for sheriff. The sheriff was an important officer. His job was less flighty than that of district attorney, almost as permanent and dignified as superior court judge. Horace didn't want to stay on the ranch all his life, and his wife had an urge to live in Salinas where she had relatives.
When the rumors, repeated by the Indian and the carpenters, that Adam Trask had been shot reached Horace, he saddled up right away and left his wife to finish butchering the pig he had killed that morning.
Just north of the big sycamore tree where the Hester road turns off to the left, Horace met Julius Euskadi. Julius was trying to decide whether to go quail hunting or to King City and catch the train to Salinas to shake some of the dust out of his britches. The Euskadis were well-to-do, handsome people of Basque extraction.
Julius said, "If you'd come along with me, I'd go into Salinas. They tell me that right next door to Jenny's, two doors from the Long Green, there's a new place called Faye's. I heard it was pretty nice, run like San Francisco. They've got a piano player."
Horace rested his elbow on his saddle horn and stirred a fly from his horse's shoulder with his rawhide quirt. "Some other time," he said. "I've got to look into something."
"You wouldn't be going to Trask's, would you?"
"That's right. Did you hear anything about it?"
"Not to make any sense. I heard Mr. Trask shot himself in the shoulder with a forty-four and then fired everybody on the ranch. How do you go about shooting yourself in the shoulder with a forty-four, Horace?"
"I don't know. Them Easterners are pretty clever. I thought I'd go up and find out. Didn't his wife just have a baby?"
"Twins, I heard," said Julius. "Maybe they shot him."
"One hold the gun and the other pull the trigger? Hear anything else?"
"All mixed up, Horace. Want some company?"
"I'm not going to deputize you, Julius. Sheriff says the supervisors are raising hell about the payroll. Hornby out in the Alisal deputized his great aunt and kept her in posse three weeks just before Easter."
"You're fooling!"
"No, I'm not. And you get no star."
"Hell, I don't want to be a deputy. Just thought I'd ride along with you for company. I'm curious."
"Me too. Glad to have you, Julius. I can always fling the oath around your neck if there's any trouble. What do you say the new place is called?"
"Faye's. Sacramento woman."
"They do things pretty nice in Sacramento," and Horace told how they did things in Sacramento as they rode along.
It was a nice day to be riding. As they turned into the Sanchez draw they were cursing the bad hunting in recent years. Three things are never any good--farming, fishing, and hunting--compared to other years, that is. Juli
us was saying, "Christ, I wish they hadn't killed off all the grizzly bears. In eighteen-eighty my grandfather killed one up by Pleyto weighed eighteen hundred pounds."
A silence came on them as they rode in under the oaks, a silence they took from the place itself. There was no sound, no movement.
"I wonder if he finished fixing up the old house," Horace said.
"Hell, no. Rabbit Holman was working on it, and he told me Trask called them all in and fired them. Told them not to come back."
"They say Trask has got a pot of money."
"I guess he's well fixed, all right," said Julius. "Sam Hamilton is sinking four wells--if he didn't get fired too."
"How is Mr. Hamilton? I ought to go up to see him."
"He's fine. Full of hell as ever."
"I'll have to go up and pay him a visit," said Horace.
Lee came out on the stoop to meet them.
Horace said, "Hello, Ching Chong. Bossy man here?"
"He sick," said Lee.
"I'd like to see him."
"No see. He sick."
"That's enough of that," said Horace. "Tell him Deputy Sheriff Quinn wants to see him."
Lee disappeared, and in a moment he was back. "You come," he said, "I take horsy."
Adam lay in the four-poster bed where the twins had been born. He was propped high with pillows, and a mound of home-devised bandages covered his left breast and shoulder. The room reeked of Hall's Cream Salve.
Horace said later to his wife, "And if you ever saw death still breathing, there it was."
Adam's cheeks hugged the bone and pulled the skin of his nose tight and slimy. His eyes seemed to bulge out of his head and to take up the whole upper part of his face, and they were shiny with sickness, intense and myopic. His bony right hand kneaded a fistful of coverlet.
Horace said, "Howdy, Mr. Trask. Heard you got hurt." He paused, waiting for an answer. He went on, "Just thought I'd drop around and see how you were doing. How'd it happen?"
A look of transparent eagerness came over Adam's face. He shifted slightly in the bed.
"If it hurts to talk you can whisper," Horace added helpfully.
"Only when I breathe deep," Adam said softly. "I was cleaning my gun and it went off."
Horace glanced at Julius and then back. Adam saw the look and a little color of embarrassment rose in his cheeks.
"Happens all the time," said Horace. "Got the gun around?"
"I think Lee put it away."