East of Eden

“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.