"I don't know," said Adam. "Sometimes I thought he loved me. He tried to kill me once."
Lee said, "Yes, that's in his face--both the love and the murder. And the two made a miser of him, and a miser is a frightened man hiding in a fortress of money. Did he know your wife?"
"Yes."
"Did he love her?"
"He hated her."
Lee sighed. "It doesn't really matter. That's not your problem, is it?"
"No. It isn't."
"Would you like to bring the problem out and look at it?"
"That's what I want."
"Go ahead then."
"I can't seem to get my mind to work clearly."
"Would you like me to lay out the cards for you? The uninvolved can sometimes do that."
"That's what I want."
"Very well then." Suddenly Lee grunted and a look of astonishment came over his face. He held his round chin in his thin small hand. "Holy horns!" he said. "I didn't think of that."
Adam stirred uneasily. "I wish you'd get off the tack you're sitting on," he said irritably. "You make me feel like a column of figures on a blackboard."
Lee took a pipe from his pocket, a long slender ebony stem with a little cuplike brass bowl. He filled the thimble bowl with tobacco so fine-cut it looked like hair, then lighted the pipe, took four long puffs, and let the pipe go out.
"Is that opium?" Adam demanded.
"No," said Lee. "It's a cheap brand of Chinese tobacco, and it has an unpleasant taste."
"Why do you smoke it then?"
"I don't know," said Lee. "I guess it reminds me of something--something I associate with clarity. Not very complicated." Lee's eyelids half closed. "All right then--I'm going to try to pull out your thoughts like egg noodles and let them dry in the sun. The woman is still your wife and she is still alive. Under the letter of the will she inherits something over fifty thousand dollars. That is a great deal of money. A sizable chunk of good or of evil could be done with it. Would your brother, if he knew where she is and what she is doing, want her to have the money? Courts always try to follow the wishes of the testator."
"My brother would not want that," said Adam. And then he remembered the girls upstairs in the tavern and Charles' periodic visits.
"Maybe you'll have to think for your brother," said Lee. "What your wife is doing is neither good nor bad. Saints can spring from any soil. Maybe with this money she would do some "fine thing. There's no springboard to philanthropy like a bad conscience."
Adam shivered. "She told me what she would do if she had money. It was closer to murder than to charity."
"You don't think she should have the money then?"
"She said she would destroy many reputable men in Salinas. She can do it too."
"I see," said Lee. "I'm glad I can take a detached view of this. The pants of their reputations must have some thin places. Morally, then, you would be against giving her the money?"
"Yes."
"Well, consider this. She has no name, no background. A whore springs full blown from the earth. She couldn't very well claim the money, if she knew about it, without your help."
"I guess that's so. Yes, I can see that she might not be able to claim it without my help."
Lee took up the pipe and picked out the ash with a little brass pin and filled the bowl again. While he drew in the four slow puffs his heavy lids raised and he watched Adam.
"It's a very delicate moral problem," he said. "With your permission I shall offer it for the consideration of my honorable relatives--using no names of course. They will go over it as a boy goes over a dog for ticks. I'm sure they will get some interesting results." He laid his pipe on the table. "But you don't have any choice, do you?"
"What do you mean by that?" Adam demanded. "Well, do you? Do you know yourself so much less than I do?"
"I don't know what to do," said Adam. "I'll have to give it a lot of thought."
Lee said angrily, "I guess I've been wasting my time. Are you lying to yourself or only to me?"
"Don't speak to me like that!" Adam said.
"Why not? I have always disliked deception. Your course is drawn. What you will do is written--written in every breath you've ever taken. I'll speak any way I want to. I'm crotchety. I feel sand under my skin. I'm. looking forward to the ugly smell of old books and the sweet smell of good thinking. Faced with two sets of morals, you'll follow your training. What you call thinking won't change it. The fact that your wife is a whore in Salinas won't change a thing."
Adam got to his feet. His face was angry. "You are insolent now that you've decided to go away," he cried. "I tell you I haven't made up my mind what to do about the money."
Lee sighed deeply. He pushed his small body erect with his hands against his knees. He walked wearily to the front door and opened it. He turned back and smiled at Adam. "Bull shit!" he said amiably, and he went out and closed the door behind him.
3
Cal crept quietly down the dark hall and edged into the room where he and his brother slept. He saw the outline of his brother's head against the pillow in the double bed, but he could not see whether Aron slept. Very gently he eased himself in on his side and turned slowly and laced his fingers behind his head and stared at the myriads of tiny colored dots that make up darkness. The window shade bellied slowly in and then the night wind fell and the worn shade flapped quietly against the window.
A gray, quilted melancholy descended on him. He wished with all his heart that Aron had not walked away from him out of the wagon shed. He wished with all his heart that he had not crouched listening at the hall door. He moved his lips in the darkness and made the words silently in his head and yet he could hear them.
"Dear Lord," he said, "let me be like Aron. Don't make me mean. I don't want to be. If you will let everybody like me, why, I'll give you anything in the world, and if I haven't got it, why, I'll go for to get it. I don't want to be mean. I don't want to be lonely. For Jesus' sake, Amen." Slow warm tears were running down his cheeks. His muscles were tight and he fought against making any crying sound or sniffle.
Aron whispered from his pillow in the dark, "You're cold. You've got a chill." He stretched out his hand to Cal's arm and felt the goose bumps there. He asked softly, "Did Uncle Charles have any money?"
"No," said Cal.
"Well, you were out there long enough. What did Father want to talk about?"
Cal lay still, trying to control his breathing.
"Don't you want to tell me?" Aron asked. "I don't care if you don't tell me."
"I'll tell," Cal whispered. He turned on his side so that his back was toward his brother. "Father is going to send a wreath to our mother. A great big goddam wreath of carnations."
Aron half sat up in bed and asked excitedly, "He is? How's he going to get it clear there?"
"On the train. Don't talk so loud."
Aron dropped back to a whisper. "But how's it going to keep fresh?"
"With ice," said Cal. "They're going to pack ice all around it."
Aron asked, "Won't it take a lot of ice?"
"A whole hell of a lot of ice," said Cal. "Go to sleep now."
Aron was silent, and then he said, "I hope it gets there fresh and nice."
"It will," said Cal. And in his mind he cried, "Don't let me be mean."
Chapter 31
1
Adam brooded around the house all morning, and at noon he went to find Lee, who was spading the dark composted earth of his vegetable garden and planting his spring vegetables, carrots and beets, turnips, peas, and string beans, rutabaga and kale. The rows were straight planted under a tight-stretched string, and the pegs at the row ends carried the seed package to identify the row. On the edge of the garden in a cold frame the tomato and bell pepper and cabbage sets were nearly ready for transplanting, waiting only for the passing of the frost danger.
Adam said, "I guess I was stupid."
Lee leaned on his spading fork and regarded him quietly.
>
"When are you going?" he asked.
"I thought I would catch the two-forty. Then I can get the eight o'clock back."
"You could put it in a letter, you know," said Lee.
"I've thought of that. Would you write a letter?"
"No. You're right. I'm the stupid one there. No letters."
"I have to go," said Adam. "I thought in all directions and always a leash snapped me back."
Lee said, "You can be unhonest in many ways, but not in that way. Well, good luck. I'll be interested to hear what she says and does."
"I'll take the rig," said Adam. "I'll leave it at the stable in King City. I'm nervous about driving the Ford alone."
It was four-fifteen when Adam climbed the rickety steps and knocked on the weather-beaten door of Kate's place. A new man opened the door, a square-faced Finn, dressed in shirt and trousers; red silk armbands held up his full sleeves. He left Adam standing on the porch and in a moment came back and led him to the dining room.
It was a large undecorated room, the walls and woodwork painted white. A long square table filled the center of the room, and on the white oilcloth cover the places were set--plates, cups and saucers, and the cups upside down in the saucers.
Kate sat at the head of the table with an account book open before her. Her dress was severe. She wore a green eyeshade, and she rolled a yellow pencil restlessly in her fingers. She looked coldly at Adam as he stood in the doorway.
"What do you want now?" she asked.
The Finn stood behind Adam.
Adam did not reply. He walked to the table and laid the letter in front of her on top of the account book.
"What's this?" she asked, and without waiting for a reply she read the letter quickly. "Go out and close the door," she told the Finn.
Adam sat at the table beside her. He pushed the dishes aside to make a place for his hat.
When the door was closed Kate said, "Is this a joke? No, you haven't got a joke in you." She considered. "Your brother might be joking. You sure he's dead?"
"All I have is the letter," said Adam.
"What do you want me to do about it?"
Adam shrugged his shoulders.
Kate said, "If you want me to sign anything, you're wasting your time. What do you want?"
Adam drew his finger slowly around his black ribbon hatband. "Why don't you write down the name of the firm and get in touch with them yourself?"
"What have you told them about me?"
"Nothing," said Adam. "I wrote to Charles and said you were living in another town, nothing more. He was dead when the letter got there. The letter went to the lawyers. It tells about it."
"The one who wrote the postscript seems to be a friend of yours. What have you written him?"
"I haven't answered the letter yet."
"What do you intend to say when you answer it?"
"The same thing--that you live in another town."
"You can't say we've been divorced. We haven't been."
"I don't intend to."
"Do you want to know how much it will take to buy me off? I'll take forty-five thousand in cash."
"No."
"What do you mean--no? You can't bargain."
"I'm not bargaining. You have the letter, you know as much as I do. Do what you want."
"What makes you so cocky?"
"I feel safe."
She peered at him from under the green transparent eyeshade. Little curls of her hair lay on the bill like vines on a green roof. "Adam, you're a fool. If you had kept your mouth shut nobody would ever have known I was alive."
"I know that."
"You know it? Did you think I might be afraid to claim the money? You're a damn fool if you thought that."
Adam said patiently, "I don't care what you do."
She smiled cynically at him. "You don't, huh? Suppose I should tell you that there's a permanent order in the sheriffs office, left there by the old sheriff, that if I ever use your name or admit I'm your wife I'll get a floater out of the county and out of the state. Does that tempt you?"
"Tempt me to do what?"
"To get me floated and take all the money."
"I brought you the letter," Adam said patiently.
"I want to know why."
Adam said, "I'm not interested in what you think or in what you think of me. Charles left you the money in his will. He didn't put any strings on it. I haven't seen the will, but he wanted you to have the money."
"You're playing a close game with fifty thousand dollars," she said, "and you're not going to get away with it. I don't know what the trick is, but I'm going to find out." And then she said, "What am I thinking about? You're not smart. Who's advising you?"
"No one."
"How about that Chinaman? He's smart."
"He gave me no advice." Adam was interested in his own complete lack of emotion. He didn't really feel that he was here at all. When he glanced at her he surprised an emotion on her face he had never seen before. Kate was afraid--she was afraid of him. But why?
She controlled her face and whipped the fear from it. "You're just doing it because you're honest, is that it? You're just too sugar sweet to live."
"I hadn't thought of it," Adam said. "It's your money and I'm not a thief. It doesn't matter to me what you think about it."
Kate pushed the eyeshade back on her head. "You want me to think you're just dropping this money in my lap. Well, I'll find out what you're up to. Don't think I won't take care of myself. Did you think I'd take such a stupid bait?"
"Where do you get your mail?" he asked patiently. "What's that to you?"
"I'll write the lawyers where to get in touch with you."
"Don't you do it!" she said. She put the letter in the account book and closed the cover. "I'll keep this. I'll get legal advice. Don't think I won't. You can drop the innocence now."
"You do that," Adam said. "I want you to have what is yours. Charles willed you the money. It isn't mine."
"I'll find the trick. I'll find it."
Adam said, "I guess you can't understand it. I don't much care. There are so many things I don't understand. I don't understand how you could shoot me and desert your sons. I don't understand how you or anyone could live like this." He waved his hand to indicate the house.
"Who asked you to understand?"
Adam stood up and took his hat from the table. "I guess that's all," he said. "Good-by." He walked toward the door.
She called after him, "You're changed, Mr. Mouse. Have you got a woman at last?" Adam stopped and slowly turned and his eyes were thoughtful. "I hadn't considered before," he said, and he moved toward her until he towered over her and she had to tilt back her head to look into his face. "I said I didn't understand about you," he said slowly. "Just now it came to me what you don't understand."
"What don't I understand, Mr. Mouse?"
"You know about the ugliness in people. You showed me the pictures. You use all the sad, weak parts of a man, and God knows he has them."
"Everybody--"
Adam went on, astonished at his own thoughts, "But you--yes, that's right--you don't know about the rest. You don't believe I brought you the letter because I don't want your money. You don't believe I loved you. And the men who come to you here with their ugliness, the men in the pictures--you don't believe those men could have goodness and beauty in them. You see only one side, and you think--more than that, you're sure--that's all there is."
She cackled at him derisively. "In sticks and stones. What a sweet dreamer is Mr. Mouse! Give me a sermon, Mr. Mouse."
"No. I won't because I seem to know that there's a part of you missing. Some men can't see the color green, but they may never know they can't. I think you are only a part of a human. I can't do anything about that. But I wonder whether you ever feel that something invisible is all around you. It would be horrible if you knew it was there and couldn't see it or feel it. That would be horrible."
Kate pushed back her chair and
stood up. Her fists were clenched at her sides and hiding in the folds of her skirt. She tried to prevent the shrillness that crept into her voice.
"Our Mouse is a philosopher," she said. "But our Mouse is no better at that than he is at other things. Did you ever hear of hallucinations? If there are things I can't see, don't you think it's possible that they are dreams manufactured in your own sick mind?"
"No, I don't," said Adam. "No, I don't. And I don't think you do either." He turned and went out and closed the door behind him.
Kate sat down and stared at the closed door. She was not aware that her fists beat softly on the White oilcloth. But she did know that the square white door was distorted by tears and that her body shook with something that felt like rage and also felt like sorrow.
2
When Adam left Kate's place he had over two hours to wait for the train back to King City. On an impulse he turned off Main Street and walked up Central Avenue to number 130, the high white house of Ernest Steinbeck. It was an immaculate and friendly house, grand enough but not pretentious, and it sat inside its white fence, surrounded by its clipped lawn, and roses and catoneasters lapped against its white walls.
Adam walked up the wide veranda steps and rang the bell. Olive came to the door and opened it a little, while Mary and John peeked around the edges of her.
Adam took off his hat. "You don't know me. I'm Adam Trask. Your father was a friend of mine. I thought I'd like to pay my respects to Mrs. Hamilton. She helped me with the twins."
"Why, of course," Olive said and swung the wide doors open. "We've heard about you. Just a moment. You see, we've made a kind of retreat for Mother."
She knocked on a door off the wide front hall and called, "Mother! There's a friend to see you."
She opened the door and showed Adam into the pleasant room where Liza lived. "You'll have to excuse me," she said to Adam. "Catrina's frying chicken and I have to watch her. John! Mary! Come along. Come along."
Liza seemed smaller than ever. She sat in a wicker rocking chair and she was old and old. Her dress was a full wide-skirted black alpaca, and at her throat she wore a pin which spelled "Mother" in golden script.
The pleasant little bed-sitting room was crowded with photographs, bottles of toilet water, lace pincushions, brushes and combs, and the china and silver bureau-knacks of many birthdays and Christmases.
On the wall hung a huge tinted photograph of Samuel, which had captured a cold and aloof dignity, a scrubbed and dressed remoteness, which did not belong to him living. There was no twinkle in the picture of him, nor any of his inspective joyousness. The picture hung in a heavy gold frame, and to the consternation of all children its eyes followed a child about the room.