"I don't want to see these," said Adam.
"Well, you have seen them. And you don't believe it! I'll have you begging to get in here. I'll have you screaming at the moon." She tried to force her will on him, and she saw that he was detached and free. Her rage congealed to poison. "No one has ever escaped," she said softly. Her eyes were flat and cold but her fingernails were tearing at the upholstery of the chair, ripping and fraying the silk.
Adam sighed. "If I had those pictures and those men knew it, I wouldn't think my life was very safe," he said. "I guess one of those pictures could destroy a man's whole life. Aren't you in danger?"
"Do you think I'm a child?" she asked.
"Not any more," said Adam. "I'm beginning to think you're a twisted human--or no human at all."
She smiled. "Maybe you've struck it," she said. "Do you think I want to be human? Look at those pictures! I'd rather be a dog than a human. But I'm not a dog. I'm smarter than humans. Nobody can hurt me. Don't worry about danger." She waved at the filing cabinets. "I have a hundred beautiful pictures in there, and those men know that if anything should happen to me--anything--one hundred letters, each one with a picture, would be dropped in the mail, and each letter will go where it will do the most harm. No, they won't hurt me."
Adam asked, "But suppose you had an accident, or maybe a disease?"
"That wouldn't make any difference," she said. She leaned closer to him. "I'm going to tell you a secret none of those men knows. In a few years I'll be going away. And when I do--those envelopes will be dropped in the mail anyway." She leaned back in her chair, laughing.
Adam shivered. He looked closely at her. Her face and her laughter were childlike and innocent. He got up and poured himself another drink, a short drink. The bottle was nearly empty. "I know what you hate. You hate something in them you can't understand. You don't hate their evil. You hate the good in them you can't get at. I wonder what you want, what final thing."
"I'll have all the money I need," she said. "I'll go to New York and I won't be old. I'm not old. I'll buy a house, a nice house in a nice neighborhood, and I'll have nice servants. And first I will find a man, if he's still alive, and very slowly and with the greatest attention to pain I will take his life away. If I do it well and carefully, he will go crazy before he dies."
Adam stamped on the floor impatiently. "Nonsense," he said. "This isn't true. This is crazy. None of this is true. I don't believe any of it."
She said, "Do you remember when you first saw me?"
His face darkened. "Oh, Lord, yes!"
"You remember my broken jaw and my split lips and my missing teeth?"
"I remember. I don't want to remember."
"My pleasure will be to find the man who did that," she said. "And after that--there will be other pleasures."
"I have to go," Adam said.
She said, "Don't go, dear. Don't go now, my love. My sheets are silk. I want you to feel those sheets against your skin."
"You don't mean that?"
"Oh, I do, my love. I do. You aren't clever at love, but I can teach you. I will teach you." She stood up unsteadily and laid her hand on his arm. Her face seemed fresh and young. Adam looked down at her hand and saw it wrinkled as a pale monkey's paw. He moved away in revulsion.
She saw his gesture and understood it and her mouth hardened.
"I don't understand," he said. "I know, but I can't believe. I know I won't believe it in the morning. It will be a nightmare dream. But no, it--it can't be a dream--no. Because I remember you are the mother of my boys. You haven't asked about them. You are the mother of my sons."
Kate put her elbows on her knees and cupped her hands under her chin so that her fingers covered her pointed ears. Her eyes were bright with triumph. Her voice was mockingly soft. "A fool always leaves an opening," she said. "I discovered that when I was a child. I am the mother of your sons. Your sons? I am the mother, yes--but how do you know you are the father?"
Adam's mouth dropped open. "Cathy, what do you mean?"
"My name is Kate," she said. "Listen, my darling, and remember. How many times did I let you come near enough to me to have children?"
"You were hurt," he said. "You were terribly hurt."
"Once," said Kate, "just once."
"The pregnancy made you ill," he protested. "It was hard on you."
She smiled at him sweetly. "I wasn't too hurt for your brother."
"My brother?"
"Have you forgotten Charles?"
Adam laughed. "You are a devil," he said. "But do you think I could believe that of my brother?"
"I don't care what you believe," she said.
Adam said, "I don't believe it."
"You will. At first you will wonder, and then you'll be unsure. You'll think back about Charles--all about him. I could have loved Charles. He was like me in a way."
"He was not."
"You'll remember," she said. "Maybe one day you will remember some tea that tasted bitter. You took my medicine by mistake--remember? Slept as you had never slept before and awakened late--thick-headed?"
"You were too hurt to plan a thing like that."
"I can do anything," she said. "And now, my love, take off your clothes. And I will show you what else I can do."
Adam closed his eyes and his head reeled with the rum. He opened his eyes and shook his head violently. "It wouldn't matter--even if it were true," he said. "It wouldn't matter at all." And suddenly he laughed because he knew that this was so. He stood too quickly and had to grab the back of his chair to steady himself against dizziness.
Kate leaped up and put both of her hands on his elbow. "Let me help you take off your coat."
Adam twisted her hands from his arm as though they were wire. He moved unsteadily toward the door.
Uncontrolled hatred shone in Kate's eyes. She screamed, a long and shrill animal screech. Adam stopped and turned toward her. The door banged open. The house pimp took three steps, poised, pivoted with his whole weight, and his fist struck Adam under the ear. Adam crashed to the floor.
Kate screamed, "The boots! Give him the boots!" Ralph moved closer to the fallen man and measured the distance. He noticed Adam's open eyes staring up at him. He turned nervously to Kate.
Her voice was cold. "I said give him the boots. Break his face!"
Ralph said, "He ain't fighting back. The fight's all out of him."
Kate sat down. She breathed through her mouth. Her hands writhed in her lap. "Adam," she said, "I hate you. I hate you now for the first time. I hate you! Adam, are you listening? I hate you!"
Adam tried to sit up, fell back, and tried again. Sitting on the floor, he looked up at Kate. "It doesn't matter," he said. "It doesn't matter at all."
He got to his knees and rested with his knuckles against the floor. He said, "Do you know, I loved you better than anything in the world? I did. It was so strong that it took quite a killing."
"You'll come crawling back," she said. "You'll drag your belly on the floor--begging, begging!"
"You want the boots now, Miss Kate?" Ralph asked.
She did not answer.
Adam moved very slowly toward the door, balancing his steps carefully. His hand fumbled at the doorjamb.
Kate called, "Adam!"
He turned slowly. He smiled at her as a man might smile at a memory. Then he went out and closed the door gently behind him.
Kate sat staring at the door. Her eyes were desolate.
Chapter 26
1
On the train back to King City from his trip to Salinas, Adam Trask was in a cloud of vague forms and sounds and colors. He was not conscious of any thought at all.
I believe there are techniques of the human mind whereby, in its dark deep, problems are examined, rejected or accepted. Such activities sometimes concern facets a man does not know he has. How often one goes to sleep troubled and full of pain, not knowing what causes the travail, and in the morning a whole new direction and a clearness is there,
maybe the result of the black reasoning. And again there are mornings when ecstasy bubbles in the blood, and the stomach and chest are tight and electric with joy, and nothing in the thoughts to justify it or cause it.
Samuel's funeral and the talk with Kate should have made Adam sad and bitter, but they did not. Out of the gray throbbing an ecstasy arose. He felt young and free and filled with a hungry gaiety. He got off the train in King City, and, instead of going directly to the livery stable to claim his horse and buggy, he walked to Will Hamilton's new garage.
Will was sitting in his glass-walled office from which he could watch the activity of his mechanics without hearing the clamor of their work. Will's stomach was beginning to fill out richly.
He was studying an advertisement for cigars shipped direct and often from Cuba. He thought he was mourning for his dead father, but he was not. He did have some little worry about Tom, who had gone directly from the funeral to San Francisco. He felt that it was more dignified to lose oneself in business, as he intended to do, than in alcohol, as Tom was probably doing.
He looked up when Adam came into the office and waved his hand to one of the big leather chairs he had installed to lull his customers past the size of the bills they were going to have to pay.
Adam sat down. "I don't know whether I offered my condolences," he said.
"It's a sad time," said Will. "You were at the funeral?"
"Yes," said Adam. "I don't know whether you know how I felt about your father. He gave me things I will never forget."
"He was respected," said Will. "There were over two hundred people at the cemetery--over two hundred."
"Such a man doesn't really die," Adam said, and he was discovering it himself. "I can't think of him dead. He seems maybe more alive to me than before."
"That's true," said Will, and it was not true to him. To Will, Samuel was dead.
"I think of things he said," Adam went on. "When he said them I didn't listen very closely, but now they come back, and I can see his face when he said them."
"That's true," said Will. "I was just thinking the same thing. Are you going back to your place?"
"Yes, I am. But I thought I would come in and talk to you about buying an automobile."
A subtle change came over Will, a kind of silent alertness. "I would have said you'd be the last man in the valley to get a car," he observed and watched through half-closed eyes for Adam's reaction.
Adam laughed. "I guess I deserved that," he said. "Maybe your father is responsible for a change in me."
"How do you mean?"
"I don't know as I could explain it. Anyway, let's talk about a car."
"I'll give you the straight dope on it," said Will. "The truth of the matter is I'm having one hell of a time getting enough cars to fill my orders. Why, I've got a list of people who want them."
"Is that so? Well, maybe I'll just have to put my name on the list."
"I'd be glad to do that, Mr. Trask, and--" He paused. "You've been so close to the family that--well, if there should be a cancellation I'd be glad to move you up on the list."
"That's kind of you," said Adam.
"How would you like to arrange it?"
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I can arrange it so you pay only so much a month."
"Isn't it more expensive that way?"
"Well, there's interest and carrying charge. Some people find it convenient."
"I think I'll pay cash," said Adam. "There'd be no point in putting it off."
Will chuckled. "Not very many people feel that way," he said. "And there's going to come a time when I won't be able to sell for cash without losing money."
"I'd never thought of that," said Adam. "You will put me on the list though?"
Will leaned toward him. "Mr. Trask, I'm going to put you on the top of the list. The first car that comes in, you're going to have."
"Thank you."
"I'll be glad to do it for you," said Will.
Adam asked, "How is your mother holding up?"
Will leaned back in his chair and an affectionate smile came on his face. "She's a remarkable woman," he said. "She's like a rock. I think back on all the hard times we had, and we had plenty of them. My father wasn't very practical. He was always off in the clouds or buried in a book. I think my mother held us together and kept the Hamiltons out of the poorhouse."
"She's a fine woman," Adam said.
"Not only fine. She's strong. She stands on her two feet. She's a tower of strength. Did you come back to Olive's house after the funeral?"
"No, I didn't."
"Well over a hundred people did. And my mother fried all that chicken and saw that everybody had enough."
"She didn't!"
"Yes, she did. And when you think--it was her own husband."
"A remarkable woman," Adam repeated Will's phrase.
"She's practical. She knew they had to be fed and she fed them."
"I guess she'll be all right, but it must be a great loss to her."
"She'll be all right," Will said. "And she'll outlive us all, little tiny thing that she is."
On his drive back to the ranch Adam found that he was noticing things he had not seen for years. He saw the wildflowers in the heavy grass, and he saw the red cows against the hillsides, moving up the easy ascending paths and eating as they went. When he came to his own land Adam felt a quick pleasure so sharp that he began to examine it. And suddenly he found himself saying aloud in rhythm with his horse's trotting feet, "I'm free, I'm free. I don't have to worry any more. I'm free. She's gone. She's out of me. Oh, Christ Almighty, I'm free!"
He reached out and stripped the fur from the silver-gray sage beside the road, and when his fingers were sticky with the sap he smelled the sharp penetrating odor on his fingers, breathed it deep into his lungs. He was glad to be going home. He wanted to see how the twins had grown in the two days he had been gone--he wanted to see the twins.
"I'm free, she's gone," he chanted aloud.
2
Lee came out of the house to meet Adam, and he stood at the horse's head while Adam climbed down from the buggy.
"How are the boys?" Adam asked.
"They're fine. I made them some bows and arrows and they went hunting rabbits in the river bottom. I'm not keeping the pan hot though."
"Everything all right here?"
Lee looked at him sharply, was about to exclaim, changed his mind. "How was the funeral?"
"Lots of people," Adam said. "He had lots of friends. I can't get it through my head that he's gone."
"My people bury them with drums and scatter papers to confuse the devils and put roast pigs instead of flowers on the grave. We're a practical people and always a little hungry. But our devils aren't very bright. We can outthink them. That's some progress."
"I think Samuel would have liked that kind of funeral," said Adam. "It would have interested him." He noticed that Lee was staring at him. "Put the horse away, Lee, and then come in and make some tea. I want to talk to you."
Adam went into the house and took off his black clothes. He could smell the sweet and now sickish odor of rum about himself. He removed all of his clothes and sponged his skin with yellow soap until the odor was gone from his pores. He put on a clean blue shirt and overalls washed until they were soft and pale blue and lighter blue at the knees where the wear came. He shaved slowly and combed his hair while the rattle of Lee at the stove sounded from the kitchen. Then he went to the living room. Lee had set out one cup and a bowl of sugar on the table beside his big chair. Adam looked around at the flowered curtains washed so long that the blossoms were pale. He saw the worn rugs on the floor and the brown path on the linoleum in the hall. And it was all new to him.
When Lee came in with the teapot Adam said, "Bring yourself a cup, Lee. And if you've got any of that drink of yours, I could use a little. I got drunk last night."
Lee said, "You drunk? I can hardly believe it."
"Well, I was. And I want to t
alk about it. I saw you looking at me."
"Did you?" asked Lee, and he went to the kitchen to bring his cup and glasses and his stone bottle of ng-ka-py.
He said when he came back, "The only times I've tasted it for years have been with you and Mr. Hamilton."
"Is that the same one we named the twins with?"
"Yes, it is." Lee poured the scalding green tea. He grimaced when Adam put two spoonfuls of sugar in his cup.
Adam stirred his tea and watched the sugar crystals whirl and disappear into liquid. He said, "I went down to see her."
"I thought you might," said Lee. "As a matter of fact I don't see how a human man could have waited so long."
"Maybe I wasn't a human man."
"I thought of that too. How was she?"
Adam said slowly, "I can't understand it. I can't believe there is such a creature in the world."
"The trouble with you Occidentals is that you don't have devils to explain things with. Did you get drunk afterward?"
"No, before and during. I needed it for courage, I guess."
"You look all right now."
"I am all right," said Adam. "That's what I want to talk to you about." He paused and said ruefully, "This time last year I would have run to Sam Hamilton to talk."
"Maybe both of us have got a piece of him," said Lee. "Maybe that's what immortality is."
"I seemed to come out of a sleep," said Adam. "In some strange way my eyes have cleared. A weight is off me."
"You even use words that sound like Mr. Hamilton," said Lee. "I'll build a theory for my immortal relatives."
Adam drank his cup of black liquor and licked his lips. "I'm free," he said. "I have to tell it to someone. I can live with my boys. I might even see a woman. Do you know what I'm saying?"
"Yes, I know. And I can see it in your eyes and in the way your body stands. A man can't lie about a thing like that. You'll like the boys, I think."
"Well, at least I'm going to give myself a chance. Will you give me another drink and some more tea?"