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. 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.”