East of Eden Page 13

  "You've got a funny look in your eye. I guess you were kind of gone on that squaw."

  "I guess I was," said Adam.

  "What happened to her?"

  "Smallpox."

  "You didn't get another one?"

  Adam's eyes were pained. "We piled them up like they were logs, over two hundred, arms and legs sticking out. And we piled brush on top and poured coal oil on."

  "I've heard they can't stand smallpox."

  "It kills them," said Adam. "You're burning that bacon."

  Charles turned quickly back to the stove. "It'll just be crisp," he said, "I like it crisp." He shoveled the bacon out on a plate and broke the eggs in the hot grease and they jumped and fluttered their edges to brown lace and made clucking sounds.

  "There was a schoolteacher," Charles said. "Prettiest thing you ever saw. Had little tiny feet. Bought all her clothes in New York. Yellow hair, and you never saw such little feet. Sang too, in the choir. Everybody took to going to church. Damn near stampeded getting into church. That was quite a while ago."

  " 'Bout the time you wrote about thinking of getting married?"

  Charles grinned. "I guess so. I guess there wasn't a young buck in the county didn't get the marrying fever."

  "What happened to her?"

  "Well, you know how it is. The women got kind of restless with her here. They got together. First thing you knew they had her out. I heard she wore silk underwear. Too hoity toity. School board had her out halfway through the term. Feet no longer than that. Showed her ankles too, like it was an accident. Always showing her ankles."

  "Did you get to know her?" Adam asked.

  "No. I only went to church. Couldn't hardly get in. Girl that pretty's got no right in a little town. Just makes people uneasy. Causes trouble."

  Adam said, "Remember that Samuels girl? She was real pretty. What happened to her?"

  "Same thing. Just caused trouble. She went away. I heard she's living in Philadelphia. Does dressmaking. I heard she gets ten dollars just for making one dress."

  "Maybe we ought to go away from here," Adam said.

  Charles said, "Still thinking of California?"

  "I guess so."

  Charles' temper tore in two. "I want you out of here!" he shouted. "I want you to get off the place. I'll buy you or sell you or anything. Get out, you son of a bitch--" He stopped. "I guess I don't mean that last. But goddam it, you make me nervous."

  "I'll go," said Adam.

  3

  In three months Charles got a colored picture postcard of the bay at Rio, and Adam had written on the back with a splottery pen, "It's summer here when it's winter there. Why don't you come down?"

  Six months later there was another card, from Buenos Aires. "Dear Charles--my God this is a big city. They speak French and Spanish both. I'm sending you a book."

  But no book came. Charles looked for it all the following winter and well into the spring. And instead of the book Adam arrived. He was brown and his clothes had a foreign look.

  "How are you?" Charles asked.

  "Fine. Did you get the book?"

  "No."

  "I wonder what happened to it? It had pictures."

  "Going to stay?"

  "I guess so. I'll tell you about that country."

  "I don't want to hear about it," said Charles.

  "Christ, you're mean," said Adam.

  "I can just see it all over again. You'll stay around a year or so and then you'll get restless and you'll make me restless. We'll get mad at each other and then we'll get polite to each other--and that's worse. Then we'll blow up and you'll go away again, and then you'll come back and we'll do it all over again."

  Adam asked, "Don't you want me to stay?"

  "Hell, yes," said Charles. "I miss you when you're not here. But I can see how it's going to be just the same."

  And it was just that way. For a while they reviewed old times, for a while they recounted the times when they were apart, and finally they relapsed into the long ugly silences, the hours of speechless work, the guarded courtesy, the flashes of anger. There were no boundaries to time so that it seemed endless passing.

  On an evening Adam said, "You know, I'm going to be thirty-seven. That's half a life."

  "Here it comes," said Charles. "Wasting your life. Look, Adam, could we not have a fight this time?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "Well, if we run true to form we'll fight for three or four weeks, getting you ready to go away. If you're getting restless, couldn't you just go away and save all the trouble?"

  Adam laughed and the tension went out of the room. "I've got a pretty smart brother." he said. "Sure, when I get the itch bad enough I'll go without fighting. Yes, I like that. You're getting rich, aren't you, Charles?"

  "I'm doing all right. I wouldn't say rich."

  "You wouldn't say you bought four buildings and the inn in the village?"

  "No, I wouldn't say it."

  "But you did. Charles, you've made this about the prettiest farm anywhere about. Why don't we build a new house--bathtub and running water and a water closet? We're not poor people any more. Why, they say you're nearly the richest man in this section."

  "We don't need a new house," Charles said gruffly. "You take your fancy ideas away."

  "It would be nice to go to the toilet without going outside."

  "You take your fancy ideas away."

  Adam was amused. "Maybe I'll build a pretty little house right over by the woodlot. Say, how would that be? Then we wouldn't get on each other's nerves."

  "I don't want it on the place."

  "The place is half mine."

  "I'll buy you out."

  "But I don't have to sell."

  Charles' eyes blazed. "I'll burn your goddam house down."

  "I believe you would," Adam said, suddenly sobered. "I believe you really would. What are you looking like that for?"

  Charles said slowly, "I've thought about it a lot. And I've wanted for you to bring it up. I guess you aren't ever going to."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You remember when you sent me a telegram for a hundred dollars?"

  "You bet I do. Saved my life, I guess. Why?"

  "You never paid it back."

  "I must have."

  "You didn't."

  Adam looked down at the old table where Cyrus had sat, knocking on his wooden leg with a stick. And the old oil lamp was hanging over the center of the table, shedding its unstable yellow light from the round Rochester wick.

  Adam said slowly, "I'll pay you in the morning."

  "I gave you plenty of time to offer."

  "Sure you did, Charles. I should have remembered." He paused, considering, and at last he said, "You don't know why I needed the money."

  "I never asked."

  "And I never told. Maybe I was ashamed. I was a prisoner, Charles. I broke jail--I escaped."

  Charles' mouth was open. "What are you talking about?"

  "I'm going to tell you. I was a tramp and I got taken up for vagrancy and put on a road gang--leg irons at night. Got out in six months and picked right up again. That's how they get their roads built. I served three days less than the second six months and then I escaped--got over the Georgia line, robbed a store for clothes, and sent you the telegram."

  "I don't believe you," Charles said. "Yes, I do. You don't tell lies. Of course I believe you. Why didn't you tell me?"

  "Maybe I was ashamed. But I'm more ashamed that I didn't pay you."

  "Oh, forget it," said Charles. "I don't know why I mentioned it."

  "Good God, no. I'll pay you in the morning."

  "I'll be damned," said Charles. "My brother a jailbird!"

  "You don't have to look so happy."

  "I don't know why," said Charles, "but it makes me kind of proud. My brother a jailbird! Tell me this, Adam--why did you wait till just three days before they let you go to make your break?"

  Adam smiled. "Two or three reasons," he said. "I w
as afraid if I served out my time, why, they'd pick me up again. And I figured if I waited till the end they wouldn't expect me to run away."

  "That makes sense," said Charles. "But you said there was one more reason."

  "I guess the other was the most important," Adam said, "and it's the hardest to explain. I figured I owed the state six months. That was the sentence. I didn't feel right about cheating. I only cheated three days."

  Charles exploded with laughter. "You're a crazy son of a bitch," he said with affection. "But you say you robbed a store."

  "I sent the money back with ten per cent interest," Adam said.

  Charles leaned forward. "Tell me about the road gang, Adam."

  "Sure I will, Charles. Sure I will."

  Chapter 11

  1

  Charles had more respect for Adam after he knew about the prison. He felt the warmth for his brother you can feel only for one who is not perfect and therefore no target for your hatred. Adam took some advantage of it too. He tempted Charles.

  "Did you ever think, Charles, that we've got enough money to do anything we want to do?"

  "All right, what do we want?"

  "We could go to Europe, we could walk around Paris."

  "What's that?"

  "What's what?"

  "I thought I heard someone on the stoop."

  "Probably a cat."

  "I guess so. Have to kill off some of them pretty soon."

  "Charles, we could go to Egypt and walk around the Sphinx."

  "We could stay right here and make some good use of our money. And we could get the hell out to work and make some use of the day. Those goddam cats!" Charles jumped to the door and yanked it open and said, "Get!" Then he was silent, and Adam saw him staring at the steps. He moved beside him.

  A dirty bundle of rags and mud was trying to worm its way up the steps. One skinny hand clawed slowly at the stairs. The other dragged helplessly. There was a caked face with cracked lips and eyes peering out of swollen, blackened lids. The forehead was laid open, oozing blood back into the matted hair.

  Adam went down the stairs and kneeled beside the figure. "Give me a hand," he said. "Come on, let's get her in. Here--look out for that arm. It looks broken."

  She fainted when they carried her in.

  "Put her in my bed," Adam said. "Now I think you better go for the doctor."

  "Don't you think we better hitch up and take her in?"

  "Move her? No. Are you crazy?"

  "Maybe not as crazy as you. Think about it a minute."

  "For God's sake, think about what?"

  "Two men living alone and they've got this in their house."

  Adam was shocked. "You don't mean it."

  "I mean it all right. I think we better take her in. It'll be all over the county in two hours. How do you know what she is? How'd she get here? What happened to her? Adam, you're taking an awful chance."

  Adam said coldly, "If you don't go now, I'll go and leave you here."

  "I think you're making a mistake. I'll go, but I tell you we'll suffer for it."

  "I'll do the suffering," said Adam. "You go."

  After Charles left, Adam went to the kitchen and poured hoi water from the teakettle into a basin. In his bedroom he dampened a handkerchief in the water and loosened the caked blood and dirt on the girl's face. She reeled up to consciousness and her blue eyes glinted at him. His mind went back--it was this room, this bed. His stepmother was standing over him with a damp cloth in her hand, and he could feel the little running pains as the water cut through. And she had said something over and over. He heard it but he could not remember what it was.

  "You'll be all right," he said to the girl. "We're getting a doctor. He'll be here right off."

  Her lips moved a little.

  "Don't try to talk," he said. "Don't try to say anything." As he worked gently with his cloth a huge warmth crept over him. "You can stay here," he said. "You can stay here as long as you want. I'll take care of you." He squeezed out the cloth and sponged her matted hair and lifted it out of the gashes in her scalp.

  He could hear himself talking as he worked, almost as though he were a stranger listening. "There, does that hurt? The poor eyes--I'll put some brown paper over your eyes. You'll be all right. That's a bad one on your forehead. I'm afraid you'll have a scar there. Could you tell me your name? No, don't try. There's lots of time. There's lots of time. Do you hear that? That's the doctor's rig. Wasn't that quick?" He moved to the kitchen door. "In here, Doc. She's in here," he called.

  2

  She was very badly hurt. If there had been X-rays in that time the doctor might have found more injuries than he did. As it was he found enough. Her left arm and three ribs were broken and her jaw was cracked. Her skull was cracked too, and the teeth on the left side were missing. Her scalp was ripped and torn and her forehead laid open to the skull. So much the doctor could see and identify. He set her arm, taped her ribs, and sewed up her scalp. With a pipette and an alcohol flame he bent a glass tube to go through the aperture where a tooth was missing so that she could drink and take liquid food without moving her cracked jaw. He gave her a large shot of morphine, left a bottle of opium pills, washed his hands, and put on his coat. His patient was asleep before he left the room.

  In the kitchen he sat down at the table and drank the hot coffee Charles put in front of him.

  "All right, what happened to her?" he asked.

  "How do we know?" Charles said truculently. "We found her on our porch. If you want to see, go look at the marks on the road where she dragged herself."

  "Know who she is?"

  "God, no."

  "You go upstairs at the inn--is she anybody from there?"

  "I haven't been there lately. I couldn't recognize her in that condition anyway."

  The doctor turned his head toward Adam. "You ever see her before?"

  Adam shook his head slowly.

  Charles said harshly, "Say, what you mousing around at?"

  "I'll tell you, since you're interested. That girl didn't fall under a harrow even if she looks that way. Somebody did that to her, somebody who didn't like her at all. If you want the truth, somebody tried to kill her."

  "Why don't you ask her?" Charles said.

  "She won't be talking for quite a while. Besides, her skull is cracked, and God knows what that will do to her. What I'm getting at is, should I bring the sheriff into it?"

  "No!" Adam spoke so explosively that the two looked at him. "Let her alone. Let her rest."

  "Who's going to take care of her?"

  "I am," said Adam.

  "Now, you look here--" Charles began.

  "Keep out of it!"

  "It's my place as much as yours."

  "Do you want me to go?"

  "I didn't mean that."

  "Well, I'll go if she has to go."

  The doctor said, "Steady down. What makes you so interested?"

  "I wouldn't put a hurt dog out."

  "You wouldn't get mad about it either. Are you holding something back? Did you go out last night? Did you do it?"

  "He was here all night," said Charles. "He snores like a goddam train."

  Adam said, "Why can't you let her be? Let her get well."

  The doctor stood up and dusted his hands. "Adam," he said, "your father was one of my oldest friends. I know you and your family. You aren't stupid. I don't know why you don't recognize ordinary facts, but you don't seem to. Have to talk to you like a baby. That girl was assaulted. I believe whoever did it tried to kill her. If I don't tell the sheriff about it, I'm breaking the law. I admit I break a few, but not that one."

  "Well, tell him. But don't let him bother her until she's better."

  "It's not my habit to let my patients be bothered," the doctor said. "You still want to keep her here?"

  "Yes."

  "Your funeral. I'll look in tomorrow. She'll sleep. Give her water and warm soup through the tube if she wants it." He stalked out.

 
Charles turned on his brother. "Adam, for God's sake, what is this?"

  "Let me alone."

  "What's got into you?"

  "Let me alone--you hear? Just let me alone."

  "Christ!" said Charles and spat on the floor and went restlessly and uneasily to work.

  Adam was glad he was gone. He moved about the kitchen, washed the breakfast dishes, and swept the floor. When he had put the kitchen to rights he went in and drew a chair up to the bed. The girl snored thickly through the morpnine. The swelling was going down on her face, but the eyes were blackened and swollen. Adam sat very still, looking at her. Her set and splintered arm lay on her stomach, but her right arm lay on top of the coverlet, the fingers curled like a nest. It was a child's hand, almost a baby's hand. Adam touched her wrist with his finger, and her fingers moved a little in reflex. Her wrist was warm. Secretly then, as though he were afraid he might be caught, he straightened her hand and touched the little cushion pads on the fingertips. Her fingers were pink and soft, but the skin on the back of her hand seemed to have an underbloom like a pearl. Adam chuckled with delight. Her breathing stopped and he became electrically alert--then her throat clicked and the rhythmed snoring continued. Gently he worked her hand and arm under the cover before he tiptoed out of the room.

  For several days Cathy lay in a cave of shock and opium. Her skin felt like lead, and she moved very little because of the pain. She was aware of movement around her. Gradually her head and her eyes cleared. Two young men were with her, one occasionally and the other a great deal. She knew that another man who came in was the doctor, and there was also a tall lean man, who interested her more than any of the others, and the interest grew out of fear. Perhaps in her drugged sleep she had picked something up and stored it.

  Very slowly her mind assembled the last days and rearranged them. She saw the face of Mr. Edwards, saw it lose its placid self-sufficiency and dissolve into murder. She had never been so afraid before in her life, but she had learned fear now. And her mind sniffed about like a rat looking for an escape. Mr. Edwards knew about the fire. Did anyone else? And how did he know? A blind nauseating terror rose in her when she thought of that.

  From things she heard she learned that the tall man was the sheriff and wanted to question her, and that the young man named Adam was protecting her from the questioning. Maybe the sheriff knew about the fire.

  Raised voices gave her the cue to her method. The sheriff said, "She must have a name. Somebody must know her."

  "How could she answer? Her jaw is broken." Adam's voice.