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. Julius 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.”
Horace stepped to the door. “Hey there, Ching Chong, bring the pistol.”
In a moment Lee poked
the gun butt-first through the door. Horace looked at it, swung the cylinder out, poked the
cartridges out,
and
smelled the empty brass cylinder of the one empty shell.
“There’s better
shooting cleaning the damn things than pointing them. I’ll
have to make a report to the county, Mr. Trask. I won’t take up much of your time. You were cleaning the barrel, maybe with a rod, and the gun went off and hit you in the shoulder?”
“That’s right, sir,” Adam said quickly.
“And cleaning it, you hadn’t
swung out the
cylinder?” “That’s right.”
“And you were poking the rod in and out with the barrel pointed toward you
with the hammer cocked?”
Adam’s breath rasped in a quick intake.
Horace went on, “And it must have blowed the rod right through you and took off your left hand too.” Horace’s pale sun-washed eyes never left Adam’s face.
He said kindly, “What
happened, Mr. Trask? Tell me what happened.”
“I tell you truly it was an accident, sir.”
“Now you wouldn’t
have me write a report like I just said. The sheriff would think I was crazy. What happened?”
“Well, I’m not very used
to guns. Maybe it wasn’t just like that, but I was cleaning it and it went off.”
There was a whistle in Horace’s nose. He had to breathe through his mouth to stop it. He moved slowly up from the foot of the bed, nearer to Adam’s head and staring eyes. “You came from the East not very long ago, didn’t you, Mr. Trask?” “That’s
right.
Connecticut.”
“I guess people don’t
use guns very much there any more.”
“Not much.” “Little hunting?” “Some.”
“So you’d be more used
to a shotgun?” “That’s right. But I never hunted much.” “I guess you didn’t
hardly use a pistol at all, so you didn’t know how to handle it.”
“That’s right,” Adam said
eagerly. “Hardly
anybody there has a pistol.” “So when you came here you bought that forty-four because everybody out here has a pistol and you were going to learn how to use it.” “Well, I thought it might
be a good thing to learn.” Julius
Euskadi stood
tensely, his face and body receptive,
listening but
uncommunicative.
Horace sighed and
looked away from Adam. His eyes brushed over and past Julius and came back to his hands. He laid the gun on the bureau and carefully lined the brass and lead cartridges beside it. “You know,” he said, “I’ve only been a deputy a little while. I thought I was going to have some fun with it and maybe in a few years run for sheriff. I haven’t got the guts for it. It isn’t any fun to me.”
Adam watched him nervously.
“I don’t think anybody’s
ever been afraid of me before
—mad at me, yes—but not afraid. It’s a mean thing, makes me feel mean.” Julius said irritably, “Get to it. You can’t resign right this minute.”
“The hell I can’t—if I
want to. All right! Mr. Trask, you served in the United States Cavalry. The weapons of the cavalry are carbines and pistols. You—” He stopped
and swallowed.
“What happened, Mr. Trask?”
Adam’s eyes seemed to grow larger, and they were moist and edged with red. “It was
an accident,” he whispered.
“Anybody see it? Was your wife with you when it happened?”
Adam did not reply, and Horace saw that his eyes were closed. “Mr. Trask,” he said, “I know you’re a sick man.
I’m trying to make it as easy on you as I can. Why don’t you rest now while I have a talk with your wife?” He waited a moment and then turned to the doorway, where Lee
still stood. “Ching
Chong, tell Missy I would admire to talk to her for a few minutes.”
Lee did not reply.
Adam spoke without
opening his eyes. “My wife is away on a visit.”
“She wasn’t here when it happened?” Horace glanced at Julius and saw a curious expression on Julius’s lips. The corners of his mouth were turned slightly up in a sardonic
smile.
Horace
thought quickly, He’s ahead of me. He’d make a good sheriff. “Say,” he said, “that’s
kind of interesting. Your wife had a baby—two babies— two weeks ago, and now she’s gone on a visit. Did she take the babies with her? I thought I heard them a little while ago.” Horace leaned over the bed and touched the back of Adam’s clenched right hand. “I hate this, but I can’t stop now. Trask!” he said loudly, “I want you to tell me what happened. This isn’t nosiness. This is the law. Now, damn it, you open your eyes and tell me or, by Christ, I’ll take you in to the sheriff even if you are hurt.”
Adam opened his eyes, and they were blank like a
sleepwalker’s eyes. And his voice came out without rise
or fall, without emphasis, and without any emotion. It was as though he pronounced perfectly words in a language he did not understand.
“My wife went away,” he said.
“Where did she go?” “I don’t know.” “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know where she went.”
Julius broke in, speaking for the first time. “Why did she go?”
“I don’t know.”
Horace said angrily,
“You watch it, Trask. You’re playing pretty close to the edge and I don’t like what
I’m thinking. You must know why she went away.”
“I don’t know why she went.”
“Was she sick? Did she act strange?”
“No.”
Horace turned. “Ching Chong,
do you know
anything about this?” “I go King City Satdy.
Come back mebbe twelve night. Find Missy Tlask on floor.”
“So you weren’t here when it happened?” “No, ma’am.”
“All right, Trask, I’ll
have to get back to you. Open
up that shade a little, Ching Chong, so I can see. There, that’s better. Now I’m going to do it your way first until I can’t any more. Your wife went away. Did she shoot you?”
“It was an accident.” “All right, an accident,
but was the gun in her hand?” “It was an accident.”
“You don’t make it very easy. But let’s say she went away and we have to find her
—see?—like a kid’s game. You’re making it that way. How long have you been married?”
“Nearly a year.” “What was her name
before you married her?” There was a long pause,
and then Adam said softly, “I won’t tell. I promised.” “Now you watch it.
Where did she come from?” “I don’t know.”
“Mr.
Trask, you’re
talking yourself right into the county jail. Let’s have a description. How tall was she?”
Adam’s eyes gleamed.
“Not tall—little and delicate.” “That’s just fine. What
color hair? Eyes?” “She was beautiful.” “Was?”
“Is.”
“Any scars?”
“Oh, God, no. Yes—a scar on her forehead.”
“You don’t know her
name, where she came from, where she went, and you can’t describe her. And you think I’m a fool.”
Adam said, “She had a secret. I promised I wouldn’t ask her. She was afraid for someone.”
And without
warning Adam began to cry. His whole body shook, and his breath made little high sounds. It was hopeless crying.
Horace felt misery rising
in him. “Come on in the other room, Julius,” he said and led the way into the living room. “All right, Julius, tell me what you think. Is he crazy?”
“I don’t know.” “Did he kill her?” “That’s what jumped into my mind.”
“Mine too,” said Horace. “My God!” He hurried into the bedroom and came back with the pistol and the shells. “I
forgot them,” he
apologized. “I won’t last long in this job.”
Julius asked, “What are you going to do?” “Well,
I
think it’s
beyond me. I told you I wouldn’t put you on the
payroll, but hold up your right hand.”
“I don’t want to get
sworn in, Horace. I want to go to Salinas.”
“You don’t have any choice, Julius. I’ll have to arrest you if you don’t get your goddam hand up.” Julius reluctantly put up his hand and disgustedly
repeated the oath. “And that’s what I get for keeping you company,” he said. “My father will skin me alive. All right, what do we do now?”
Horace said, “I’m going to run to papa. I need the
sheriff. I’d take Trask in but I don’t want to move him.
You’ve got to stay, Julius. I’m sorry. Have you got a
gun?” “Hell, no.”
“Well, take this one, and take my star.” He unpinned it from his shirt and held it out. “How long do you think you’ll be gone?”
“Not any longer than I can help. Did you ever see Mrs. Trask, Julius?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Neither did I. And I’ve got to tell the sheriff that
Trask doesn’t know her name or anything. And she’s not very big and she is beautiful.
That’s one hell of
a
description! I think I’ll resign
before I tell the sheriff, because he’s sure as hell going to fire me afterward. Do you think he killed her?” “How the hell do I
know?”
“Don’t get mad.”
Julius picked up the gun
and put the cartridges back in the cylinder and balanced it in his hand. “You want an idea, Horace?”
“Don’t it look like Ineed one?”
“Well, Sam Hamilton knew
her—he took the
babies, Rabbit says. And Mrs. Hamilton took care of her.
Why don’t you ride out there
on your way and find out what she really looked like.” “I think maybe you
better keep that star,” said Horace. “That’s good. I’ll get going.”
“You want me to look around?”
“I want you just to see
that he doesn’t get away—or hurt himself. Understand?
Take care of yourself.”
2
About midnight Horace got on a freight train in King City. He sat up in the cab with the engineer, and he was in Salinas the first thing in the morning. Salinas was the
county seat, and it was a fast-growing town. Its population was due to cross the two
thousand mark any time. It
was the biggest town between San Jose and San Luis Obispo, and everyone felt that a brilliant future was in store for it.
Horace walked up from the Southern Pacific Depot and stopped in the Chop House for breakfast. He
didn’t want to get the sheriff out so early and rouse ill will when it wasn’t necessary. In the Chop House he ran into young
Will Hamilton,
looking pretty prosperous in a salt-and-pepper business suit.
Horace sat down at the table with him. “How are you, Will?”
“Oh, pretty good.”
“Up here on business?” “Well, yes, I do have a little deal on.”
“You might let me in on something
sometime.”
Horace felt strange talking like this to such a young man, but Will Hamilton had an aura of success about him.
Everybody knew he was going to be a very influential man in the county. Some people exude their futures, good or bad.
“I’ll do that, Horace. I thought the ranch took all your time.”
“I could be persuaded to
rent it if anything turned up.”
Will leaned over the
table. “You know, Horace,
our part of the county has been pretty much left out. Did you ever think of running for office?”
“What do you mean?” “Well, you’re a deputy
—did you ever think of running for sheriff?” “Why, no, I didn’t.” “Well, you think about
it. Just keep it under your hat. I’ll look you up in a couple of weeks and we’ll talk about it. But keep it under your hat.” “I’ll certainly do that,
Will. But we’ve got an awful good sheriff.”
“I know. That’s got nothing to do with it. King City hasn’t got a single county officer—you see?” “I see. I’ll think about it.
Oh, by the way, I stopped by and saw your father and mother yesterday.”
Will’s face lighted up.
“You did? How were they?” “Just fine. You know,
your father is a real comical genius.”
Will chuckled. “He
made us laugh all the time we were growing up.”
“But he’s a smart man too, Will. He showed me a new kind of windmill he’s invented—goddamnedest thing you ever saw.”
“Oh, Lord,” said Will, “here
come the
patent
attorneys again!”
“But this is good,” said Horace.
“They’re all good. And the only people who make any money are the patent
lawyers. Drives my mother crazy.”
“I guess you’ve got a point there.”
Will said, “The only way
to make any money is to sell something somebody else makes.”
“You’ve got a point there, Will, but this is the
goddamnedest windmill you ever saw.”
“He took you in, did he, Horace?”
“I guess he did. But you
wouldn’t want him to change, would you?”
“Oh, Lord, no!” said
Will. “You think about what I said.”
“All right.”
“And keep it under your hat,” said Will.
The sheriff’s job was not
an easy one, and that county which, out of the grab bag of popular elections, pulled a good sheriff was lucky. It was a complicated position. The obvious duties of the sheriff
—enforcing the law and keeping the peace—were far from the most important ones. It was true that the sheriff represented armed force in the
county,
but in a
community seething with
individuals a harsh or stupid sheriff did not last long.
There were water rights, boundary
disputes, astray arguments, domestic
relations, paternity matters— all to be settled without force of
arms. Only when
everything else failed did a good sheriff make an arrest.
The best sheriff was not the best fighter but the best diplomat.
And Monterey
County had a good one. He had a brilliant gift for minding his own business. Horace went into the sheriff’s office in the old county jail about ten minutes after nine. The sheriff shook hands and discussed the weather and the crops until Horace was ready to get down to business.
“Well, sir,” Horace said finally, “I had to come up to get your advice.” And he told his story in great detail— what everybody had said and how they looked and what
time it was—everything. After a few moments the sheriff closed his eyes and laced his fingers together. He punctuated
the account
occasionally by opening his eyes,
but he made no
comment.
“Well, there I was on a limb,”
Horace said. “I
couldn’t find
out
what
happened. I couldn’t even find out what the woman looked like. It was Julius Euskadi got the idea I should go to see Sam Hamilton.”
The sheriff stirred, crossed his legs, and
inspected the job. “You think he killed her.”
“Well, I did. But Mr. Hamilton kind of talked me out of it. He says Trask hasn’t got it in him to kill anybody.” “Everybody’s got it in
him,” the sheriff said. “You just find his trigger and
anybody will go off.” “Mr. Hamilton told me
some funny things about her. You know, when he was taking her babies she bit him on the hand. You ought to see that hand, like a wolf got him.”
“Did Sam give you a description?”
“He did, and his wife
did.” Horace took a piece of paper from his pocket and read a detailed description of Cathy. Between the two of them the Hamiltons knew pretty
much everything
physical there was to know about Cathy.
When Horace finished
the sheriff sighed. “They both agreed about the scar?”
“Yes, they did. And both
of them remarked about how sometimes it was darker than other times.”
The sheriff closed his
eyes again and leaned back in his
chair. Suddenly he
straightened up, opened a drawer of his rolltop desk, and took out a pint of whisky. “Have a drink,” he said. “Don’t mind if I do.
Here’s looking at you.” Horace wiped his mouth and handed back the pint. “Got any ideas?” he asked.
The sheriff took three
big swallows of whisky, corked the pint, and put it back in the drawer before he replied. “We’ve got a pretty well-run county,” he said. “I get along with the constables, give them a hand when they need it, and they help me out when I need it. You take a town growing like Salinas, and strangers in and out all the time—we could have trouble if we didn’t watch it pretty close. My office gets along fine with the local people.” He looked Horace in the eye. “Don’t get restless.
I’m not making a speech. I just want to tell you how it is.
We don’t drive
people.
We’ve got to live with them.” “Did I do something wrong?”
“No, you didn’t, Horace.
You did just right. If you hadn’t come to town or if you had brought Mr. Trask in, we’d of been in one hell of a mess. Now hold on. I’m going to tell you—”
“I’m
listening,” said Horace.
“Over across the tracks down by Chinatown there’s a row of whorehouses.”
“I know that.” “Everybody knows it. If
we closed them up they’d just move. The people want those
houses. We keep an eye on them so not much bad happens. And the people that run those houses keep in touch with us. I’ve picked up some wanted men from tips I got down there.”
Horace said, “Julius told me—”
“Now wait a minute. Let me get all this said so we
won’t have to go back over it. About three months ago a fine-looking woman came in to see me. She wanted to open a house here and wanted to do it right. Came from Sacramento. Ran a place there. She had letters from some pretty important people
—straight record—never had any trouble. A pretty damn
good citizen.”
“Julius told me. Name of Faye.”
“That’s right. Well, she opened a nice place, quiet, well run. It was about time old Jenny and the Nigger had some competition. They were mad as hell about it, but I told them just what I told you. It’s about time they had some competition.”
“There’s a
piano player.”
“Yes, there is. Good one too—blind fella. Say, are you going to let me tell this?” “I’m
sorry,” said
Horace.
“That’s all right. I know I’m slow but I’m thorough.
Anyways, Faye turned out to be just what she looks like, a good solid citizen. Now there’s one thing a good quiet whorehouse is more scared of than anything else. Take a flighty randy girl runs off from home and goes in a house. Her old man finds her and he begins to shovel up hell. Then the churches get into it, and the women, and pretty soon that whorehouse has got a bad name and we’ve got to close it up. You understand?”
“Yeah!” Horace said softly.
“Now don’t get ahead of
me. I hate to tell something you already thought out. Faye sent me a note Sunday night. She’s got a girl and she can’t make much out of her. What puzzles Faye is that this kid looks like a runaway girl except she’s a goddam good whore. She knows all the answers and all the tricks. I went down and looked her over. She told me the usual bull, but I can’t find a thing wrong with her. She’s of age and
nobody’s made
a
complaint.” He spread his hands. “Well, there it is.
What do we do about it?” “You’re pretty sure it’s
Mrs. Trask?”
The sheriff said, “Wide-set eyes, yellow hair, and a scar on her forehead, and she
came in Sunday afternoon.”
Adam’s weeping face
was in Horace’s mind. “God all mighty! Sheriff, you got to get somebody else to tell him. I’ll quit before I do.”
The sheriff gazed into space. “You say he didn’t even know her name, where she came from. She really bullshitted him, didn’t she?” “The
poor bastard,” Horace said. “The poor
bastard is in love with her.
No, by God, somebody else has got to tell him. I won’t.” The sheriff stood up.
“Let’s go down to the Chop House and get a cup of coffee.”
They walked along the street in silence for a while.
“Horace,” the sheriff said, “if I told some of the things I know, this whole goddam county would go up in smoke.”
“I guess that’s right.” “You
said she had
twins?”
“Yeah, twin boys.” “You
listen
to me,
Horace. There’s only three people in the world that knows—her and you and me. I’m going to warn her that if she ever tells I’ll brush her ass out of this county so fast it’ll burn. And, Horace—if you should ever get an itchy tongue,
before you tell
anybody, even your wife, why, you think about those little boys finding out their mother is a whore.”
3
Adam sat in his chair under the big oak tree. His left arm was
expertly bandaged
against his side so that he could not move his shoulder. Lee came out carrying the laundry basket. He set it on the ground beside Adam and went back inside.
The twins were awake,
and they both looked blindly
and earnestly up at the wind-moved leaves of the oak tree.
A dry oak leaf came whirling down and landed in the basket. Adam leaned over and picked it out.
He didn’t hear Samuel’s horse until it was almost upon him, but Lee had seen him coming. He brought a chair out and led Doxology away toward the shed.
Samuel
sat down
quietly, and he didn’t trouble Adam by looking at him too much, and he didn’t trouble him by not looking at him.
The wind freshened in the treetops and a fringe of it ruffled Samuel’s hair. “I thought I’d better get back to the wells,” Samuel said softly.
Adam’s voice had gone rusty from lack of use. “No,” he said, “I don’t want any wells. I’ll pay for the work you did.”
Samuel leaned over the basket and put his finger against the small palm of one of the twins and the fingers closed and held on. “I guess
the last bad habit a man will give up is advising.”
“I don’t want advice.” “Nobody does. It’s a giver’s present. Go through the motions, Adam.” “What motions?”
“Act out being alive, like a play. And after a while, a
long while, it will be true.” “Why should I?” Adam asked.
Samuel was looking at
the twins. “You’re going to pass something down no matter what you do or if you do nothing. Even if you let yourself go fallow, the weeds will grow and the brambles. Something will grow.” Adam did not answer,
and Samuel stood up. “I’ll be
back,” he said. “I’ll be back again and again. Go through the motions, Adam.”
In the back of the shed Lee held Doxology while
Sam mounted. “There goes your bookstore, Lee,” he said. “Oh, well,” said the
Chinese, “maybe I didn’t want it much anyway.”
