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she knew he noticed the slight movement of her tightening muscles. “I hear he’s a very
nice man. I hear also that he’s pretty hard hit.” He looked into her eyes for a moment.
“Don’t you want to know how bad you shot him?”

“Yes,” she said.
“Well, he’s going to get well—smashed his shoulder, but he’s going to get well. That
Chink is taking pretty good care of him. Course I don’t think he’ll lift anything with his
left arm for quite a spell. A forty-four tears hell out of a man. If the Chink hadn’t come
back he’d of bled to death, and you’d be staying with me in the jail.”
Kate was holding her breath, listening for any hint of what was coming and not hearing
any hints.
“I’m sorry,” she said quietly.
The sheriff’s eyes became alert. “Now that’s the first time you’ve made a mistake,” he
said. “You’re not sorry. I knew somebody like you once—hung him twelve years ago in
front of the county jail. We used to do that here.”
The little room with its dark mahogany bed, its marble-top wash stand with bowl and
pitcher and a door for the pot, its wallpaper endlessly repeating little roses—little roses—
the little room was silent, the sound sucked out of it.
The sheriff was staring at a picture of three cherubim—just heads, curly-haired, limpid-
eyed, with wings about the size of pigeons’ wings growing out of where their necks
would be. He frowned. “That’s a funny picture for a whorehouse,” he said.
“It was here,” said Kate. Apparently the preliminaries were over now.
The sheriff straightened up, undid his fingers, and held the arms of his chair. Even his
buttocks pulled in a little. “You left a couple of babies,” he said. “Little boys. Now you
calm down. I’m not going to try to get you to go back. I guess I’d do quite a bit to keep
you from going back. I think I know you. I could just run you over the county line and
have the next sheriff run you, and that could keep up till you landed splash in the Atlantic
Ocean. But I don’t want to do that. I don’t care how you live as long as you don’t give me
any trouble. A whore is a whore.”
Kate asked evenly, “What is it you do want?”
“That’s more like it,” the sheriff said. “Here’s what I want. I notice you changed your
name. I want you to keep your new name. I guess you made up someplace you came
from—well, that’s where you came from. And your reason—that’s when you’re maybe
drunk—you keep your reason about two thousand miles away from King City.”
She was smiling a little, and not a forced smile. She was beginning to trust this man
and to like him.
“One thing I thought of,” he said. “Did you know many people around King City?”
“No.”
“I heard about the knitting needle,” he said casually. “Well, it could happen that
somebody you knew might come in here. That your real hair color?”
“Yes.”
“Dye it black for a while. Lots of people look like somebody else.”
“How about this?” She touched her scar with a slender finger.
“Well, that’s just a—what is that word? What is that goddam word? I had it this
morning.”
“Coincidence?”
“That’s it—coincidence.” He seemed to be finished. He got out tobacco and papers and

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rolled a clumsy, lumpy cigarette. He broke out a sulphur match and struck it on the block
and held it away until its acrid blue flame turned yellow. His cigarette burned crookedly
up the side.

Kate said, “Isn’t there a threat? I mean, what you’ll do if I—”
“No, there isn’t. I guess I could think up something pretty ornery, though, if it came to
that. No, I don’t want you—what you are, what you do, or what you say—to hurt Mr.
Trask or his boys. You figure you died and now you’re somebody else and we’ll get
along fine.”
He stood up and went to the door, then turned. “I’ve got a boy—he’ll be twenty this
year; big, nice-looking fellow with a broken nose. Everybody likes him. I don’t want him
in here. I’ll tell Faye too. Let him go to Jenny’s. If he comes in, you tell him to go to
Jenny’s.” He closed the door behind him.
Kate smiled down at her fingers.

4

Faye twisted around in her chair to reach a piece of brown panocha studded with walnuts.
When she spoke it was around a mouth full of candy. Kate wondered uneasily whether
she could read minds, for Faye said, “I still don’t like it as well. I said it then and I say it
again. I liked your hair blond better. I don’t know what got into you to change it. You’ve
got a fair complexion.”

Kate caught a single thread of hair with fingernails of thumb and forefinger and gently
drew it out. She was very clever. She told the best lie of all—the truth. “I didn’t want to
tell you,” she said. “I was afraid I might be recognized and that would hurt someone.”

Faye got up out of her chair and went to Kate and kissed her. “What a good child it is,”
she said. “What a thoughtful dear.”

Kate said, “Let’s have some tea. I’ll bring it in.” She went out of the room, and in the
hall on the way to the kitchen she rubbed the kiss from her cheek with her fingertips.

Back in her chair, Faye picked out a piece of panocha with a whole walnut showing
through. She put it in her mouth and bit into a piece of walnut shell. The sharp, pointed
fragment hit a hollow tooth and whanged into the nerve. Blue lights of pain flashed
through her. Her forehead became wet. When Kate came back with teapot and cups on a
tray Faye was clawing at her mouth with a crooked finger and whimpering in agony.

“What is it?” Kate cried.
“Tooth—nutshell.”
“Here, let me see. Open and point.” Kate looked into the open mouth, then went to the
nut bowl on the fringed table for a nut pick. In a fraction of a second she had dug out the
shell and held it in the palm of her hand. “There it is.”
The nerve stopped shrieking and the pain dropped to an ache. “Only that big? It felt
like a house. Look, dear,” said Faye, “open that second drawer where my medicine is.
Bring the paregoric and a piece of cotton. Will you help me pack this tooth?”
Kate brought the bottle and pushed a little ball of saturated cotton into the tooth with
the point of the nut pick. “You ought to have it out.”
“I know. I will.”
“I have three teeth missing on this side.”
“Well, you’d never know it. That made me feel all shaky. Bring me the Pinkham, will
you?” She poured herself a slug of the vegetable compound and sighed with relief.
“That’s a wonderful medicine,” she said. “The woman who invented it was a saint.”

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Chapter 20

1

It was a pleasant afternoon. Frémont’s Peak was lighted pinkly by the setting sun, and
Faye could see it from her window. From over on Castroville Street came the sweet
sound of jingling horse bells from an eight-horse grain team down from the ridge. The
cook was fighting pots in the kitchen. There was a rubbing sound on the wall and then a
gentle tap on the door.

“Come in, Cotton Eye,” Faye called.
The door opened and the crooked little cotton-eyed piano player stood in the entrance,
waiting for a sound to tell him where she was.
“What is it you want?” Faye asked.
He turned to her. “I don’t feel good, Miss Faye. I want to crawl into my bed and not do
no playing tonight.”
“You were sick two nights last week, Cotton Eye. Don’t you like your job?”
“I don’t feel good.”
“Well, all right. But I wish you’d take better care of yourself.”
Kate said softly, “Let the gong alone for a couple of weeks, Cotton Eye.”
“Oh, Miss Kate. I didn’t know you was here. I ain’t been smoking.”
“You’ve been smoking,” Kate said.
“Yes, Miss Kate, I sure will let it alone. I don’t feel good.” He closed the door, and
they could hear his hand rubbing along the wall to guide him.
Faye said, “He told me he’d stopped.”
“He hasn’t stopped.”
“The poor thing,” said Faye, “he doesn’t have much to live for.”
Kate stood in front of her. “You’re so sweet,” she said. “You believe in everybody.
Someday if you don’t watch, or I don’t watch for you, someone will steal the roof.”
“Who’d want to steal from me?” asked Faye.
Kate put her hand on Faye’s plump shoulders. “Not everyone is as nice as you are.”
Faye’s eyes glistened with tears. She picked up a handkerchief from the chair beside
her and wiped her eyes and patted delicately at her nostrils. “You’re like my own
daughter, Kate,” she said.
“I’m beginning to believe I am. I never knew my mother. She died when I was small.”
Faye drew a deep breath and plunged into the subject.
“Kate, I don’t like you working here.”
“Why not?”
Faye shook her head, trying to find words. “I’m not ashamed. I run a nice house. If I
didn’t somebody else might run a bad house. I don’t do anybody any harm. I’m not
ashamed.”
“Why should you be?” asked Kate.
“But I don’t like you working. I just don’t like it. You’re sort of my daughter. I don’t

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like my daughter working.”
“Don’t be a silly, darling,” said Kate. “I have to—here or somewhere else. I told you. I

have to have the money.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Of course I do. Where else could I get it?”
“You could be my daughter. You could manage the house. You could take care of

things for me and not go upstairs. I’m not always well, you know.”
“I know you’re not, poor darling. But I have to have money.”
“There’s plenty for both of us, Kate. I could give you as much as you make and more,

and you’d be worth it.”
Kate shook her head sadly. “I do love you,” she said. “And I wish I could do what you

want. But you need your little reserve, and I—well, suppose something should happen to
you? No, I must go on working. Do you know, dear, I have five regulars tonight?”

A jar of shock struck Faye. “I don’t want you to work.”
“I have to, Mother.”
The word did it. Faye burst into tears, and Kate sat on the arm of her chair and stroked
her cheek and wiped her streaming eyes. The outburst sniffled to a close.
The dusk was settling deeply on the valley. Kate’s face was a glow of lightness under
her dark hair. “Now you’re all right. I’ll go and look in on the kitchen and then dress.”
“Kate, can’t you tell your regulars you’re sick?”
“Of course not, Mother.”
“Kate, it’s Wednesday. Probably won’t be anybody in after one o’clock.”
“The Woodmen of the World are having a do.”
“Oh, yes. But on Wednesday—the Woodmen won’t be here after two.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Kate, when you close, you tap on my door. I’ll have a little surprise for you.”
“What kind of a surprise?”
“Oh, a secret surprise! Will you ask the cook to come in as you go by the kitchen?”
“Sounds like a cake surprise.”
“Now don’t ask questions, darling. It’s a surprise.”
Kate kissed her. “What a dear you are, Mother.”
When she had closed the door behind her Kate stood for a moment in the hall. Her
fingers caressed her little pointed chin. Her eyes were calm. Then she stretched her arms
over her head and strained her body in a luxurious yawn. She ran her hands slowly down
her sides from right under her breasts to her hips. Her mouth corners turned up a little,
and she moved toward the kitchen.

2

The few regulars drifted in and out and two drummers walked down the Line to look
them over, but not a single Woodman of the World showed up. The girls sat yawning in
the parlor until two o’clock, waiting.

What kept the Woodmen away was a sad accident. Clarence Monteith had a heart
attack right in the middle of the closing ritual and before supper. They laid him out on the
carpet and dampened his forehead until the doctor came. Nobody felt like sitting down to
the doughnut supper. After Dr. Wilde had arrived and looked Clarence over, the
Woodmen made a stretcher by putting flagpoles through the sleeves of two overcoats. On
the way home Clarence died, and they had to go for Dr. Wilde again. And by the time

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they had made plans for the funeral and written the piece for the Salinas Journal, nobody
had any heart for a whorehouse.

The next day, when they found out what had happened, the girls all remembered what
Ethel had said at ten minutes to two.

“My God!” Ethel had said. “I never heard it so quiet. No music, cat’s got Kate’s
tongue. It’s like setting up with a corpse.”

Later Ethel was impressed with having said it—almost as if she knew.
Grace had said, “I wonder what cat’s got Kate’s tongue. Don’t you feel good? Kate—I
said, don’t you feel good?”
Kate started. “Oh! I guess I was thinking of something.”
“Well, I’m not,” said Grace. “I’m sleepy. Why don’t we close up? Let’s ask Faye if we
can’t lock up. There won’t even be a Chink in tonight. I’m going to ask Faye.”
Kate’s voice cut in on her. “Let Faye alone. She’s not well. We’ll close up at two.”
“That clock’s way wrong,” said Ethel. “What’s the matter with Faye?”
Kate said, “Maybe that’s what I was thinking about. Faye’s not well. I’m worried to
death about her. She won’t show it if she can help it.”
“I thought she was all right,” Grace said.
Ethel hit the jackpot again. “Well, she don’t look good to me. She’s got a kind of flush.
I noticed it.”
Kate spoke very softly. “Don’t you girls ever let her know I told you. She wouldn’t
want you to worry. What a dear she is!”
“Best goddam house I ever hustled,” said Grace.
Alice said, “You better not let her hear you talk words like that.”
“Balls!” said Grace. “She knows all the words.”
“She don’t like to hear them—not from us.”
Kate said patiently, “I want to tell you what happened. I was having tea with her late
this afternoon and she fainted dead away. I do wish she’d see a doctor.”
“I noticed she had a kind of bright flush,” Ethel repeated. “That clock’s way wrong but
I forget which way.”
Kate said, “You girls go on to bed. I’ll lock up.”
When they were gone Kate went to her room and put on her pretty new print dress that
made her look like a little girl. She brushed and braided her hair and let it hang behind in
one thick pigtail tied with a little white bow. She patted her cheeks with Florida water.
For a moment she hesitated, and then from the top bureau drawer she took a little gold
watch that hung from a fleur-de-lis pin. She wrapped it in one of her fine lawn
handkerchiefs and went out of the room.
The hall was very dark, but a rim of light showed under Faye’s door. Kate tapped
softly.
Faye called, “Who is it?”
“It’s Kate.”
“Don’t you come in yet. You wait outside. I’ll tell you when.” Kate heard a rustling
and a scratching in the room. Then Faye called, “All right. Come in.”
The room was decorated. Japanese lanterns with candles in them hung on bamboo
sticks at the corners, and red crepe paper twisted in scallops from the center to the corners
to give the effect of a tent. On the table, with candlesticks around it, was a big white cake
and a box of chocolates, and beside these a basket with a magnum of champagne peeking

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out of crushed ice. Faye wore her best lace dress and her eyes were shiny with emotion.
“What in the world?” Kate cried. She closed the door. “Why, it looks like a party!”
“It is a party. It’s a party for my dear daughter.”
“It’s not my birthday.” Faye said, “In a way maybe it is.”
“I don’t know what you mean. But I brought you a present.” She laid the folded

handkerchief in Faye’s lap. “Open it carefully,” she said.
Faye held the watch up. “Oh, my dear, my dear! You crazy child! No, I can’t take it.”

She opened the face and then picked open the back with her fingernail. It was
engraved.—”To C. with all my heart from A.”

“It was my mother’s watch,” Kate said softly. “I would like my new mother to have it.”
“My darling child! My darling child!”
“Mother would be glad.”
“But it’s my party. I have a present for my dear daughter—but I’ll have to do it in my
own way. Now, Kate, you open the bottle of wine and pour two glasses while I cut the
cake. I want it to be fancy.”
When everything was ready Faye took her seat behind the table. She raised her glass.
“To my new daughter—may you have long life and happiness.” And when they had
drunk Kate proposed, “To my mother.” Faye said, “You’ll make me cry—don’t make me
cry. Over on the bureau, dear. Bring the little mahogany box. There that’s the one. Now
put it on the table here and open it.”
In the polished box lay a rolled white paper tied with a red ribbon. “What in the world
is it?” Kate asked. “It’s my gift to you. Open it.”
Kate very carefully untied the red ribbon and unrolled the tube. It was written elegantly
with shaded letters, and it was well and carefully drawn and witnessed by the cook.
“All my worldly goods without exception to Kate Albey because I regard her as my
daughter.”
It was simple, direct, and legally irreproachable. Kate read it three times, looked back
at the date, studied the cook’s signature. Faye watched her, and her lips were parted in
expectation. When Kate’s lips moved, reading, Faye’s lips moved.
Kate rolled the paper and tied the ribbon around it and put it in the box and closed the
lid. She sat in her chair.
Faye said at last, “Are you pleased?”
Kate’s eyes seemed to peer into and beyond Faye’s eyes—to penetrate the brain behind
the eyes. Kate said quietly, “I’m trying to hold on, Mother. I didn’t know anyone could
be so good. I’m afraid if I say anything too quickly or come too close to you, I’ll break to
pieces.”
It was more dramatic than Faye had anticipated, quiet and electric. Faye said, “It’s a
funny present, isn’t it?”
“Funny? No, it isn’t funny.”
“I mean, a will is a strange present. But it means more than that. Now you are my real
daughter I can tell you. I—no, we—have cash and securities in excess of sixty thousand
dollars. In my desk are notations of accounts and safe-deposit boxes. I sold the place in
Sacramento for a very good price. Why are you so silent, child? Is something bothering
you?”
“A will sounds like death. That’s thrown a pall.”
“But everyone should make a will.”

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“I know, Mother.” Kate smiled ruefully. “A thought crossed my mind. I thought of all
your kin coming in angrily to break such a will as this. You can’t do this.”

“My poor little girl, is that what’s bothering you? I have no folks. As far as I know I
have no kin. And if I did have some—who would know? Do you think you are the only
one with secrets? Do you think I use the name I was born with?”

Kate looked long and levelly at Faye.
“Kate,” she cried, “Kate, it’s a party. Don’t be sad! Don’t be frozen!”
Kate got up, gently pulled the table aside, and sat down on the floor. She put her cheek
on Faye’s knee. Her slender fingers traced a gold thread on the skirt through its intricate
leaf pattern. And Faye stroked Kate’s cheek and hair and touched her strange ears. Shyly
Faye’s fingers explored to the borders of the scar.
“I think I’ve never been so happy before,” said Kate.
“My darling. You make me happy too. Happier than I have ever been. Now I don’t feel
alone. Now I feel safe.”
Kate picked delicately at the gold thread with her fingernails.
They sat in the warmth for a long time before Faye stirred. “Kate,” she said, “we’re
forgetting. It’s a party. We’ve forgotten the wine. Pour it, child. We’ll have a little
celebration.”
Kate said uneasily, “Do we need it, Mother?”
“It’s good. Why not? I like to take on a little load. It lets the poison out. Don’t you like
champagne, Kate?”
“Well, I never have drunk much, it’s not good for me.”
“Nonsense. Pour it, darling.”
Kate got up from the floor and filled the glasses.
Faye said, “Now drink it down. I’m watching you. You’re not going to let an old
woman get silly by herself.”
“You’re not an old woman, Mother.”
“Don’t talk—drink it. I won’t touch mine until yours is empty.” She held her glass until
Kate had emptied hers, then gulped it. “Good, that’s good,” she said. “Fill them up. Now,
come on dear—down the rat hole. After two or three the bad things go away.”
Kate’s chemistry screamed against the wine. She remembered, and she was afraid.
Faye said, “Now let me see the bottom, child—there. You see how good it is? Fill up
again.”
The transition came to Kate almost immediately after the second glass. Her fear
evaporated, her fear of anything disappeared. This was what she had been afraid of, and
now it was too late. The wine had forced a passage through all the carefully built barriers
and defenses and deceptions, and she didn’t care. The thing she had learned to cover and
control was lost. Her voice became chill and her mouth was thin. Her wide-set eyes
slitted and grew watchful and sardonic.
“Now you drink—Mother—while I watch,” she said. “There’s a—dear. I’ll bet you
can’t drink two without stopping.”
“Don’t bet me, Kate. You’d lose. I can drink six without stopping.”
“Let me see you.”
“If I do, will you?”
“Of course.”
The contest started, and a puddle of wine spread out over the tabletop and the wine

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went down in the magnum.
Faye giggled. “When I was a girl—I could tell you stories maybe you wouldn’t

believe.”
Kate said, “I could tell stories nobody would believe.”
“You? Don’t be silly. You’re a child.”
Kate laughed. “You never saw such a child. This is a child—yes—a child!” She

laughed with a thin penetrating shriek.
The sound got through the wine that was muffling Faye. She centered her eyes on Kate.

“You look so strange,” she said. “I guess it’s the lamplight. You look different.”
“I am different.”
“Call me ‘Mother,’ dear.”
“Mother—dear.”
“Kate, we’re going to have such a good life.”
“You bet we are. You don’t even know. You don’t know.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to Europe. We could get on a ship and have nice clothes—

dresses from Paris.”
“Maybe we’ll do that—but not now.”
“Why not, Kate? I have plenty of money.”
“We’ll have plenty more.”
Faye spoke pleadingly, “Why don’t we go now? We could sell the house. With the

business we’ve got, we could get maybe ten thousand dollars for it.”
“No.”
“What do you mean, no? It’s my house. I can sell it.”
“Did you forget I’m your daughter?”
“I don’t like your tone, Kate. What’s the matter with you? Is there any more wine?”
“Sure, there’s a little. Look at it through the bottle. Here, drink it out of the bottle.

That’s right—Mother—spill it down your neck. Get it in under your corset, Mother,
against your fat stomach.”

Faye wailed, “Kate, don’t be mean! We were feeling so nice. What do you want to go
and spoil it for?”

Kate wrenched the bottle from her hand. “Here, give me that.” She tipped it up and
drained it and dropped it on the floor. Her face was sharp and her eyes glinted. The lips of
her little mouth were parted to show her small sharp teeth, and the canines were longer
and more pointed than the others. She laughed softly. “Mother—dear Mother—I’m going
to show you how to run a whorehouse. We’ll fix the gray slugs that come in here and
dump their nasty little loads—for a dollar. We’ll give them pleasure, Mother dear.”

Faye said sharply. “Kate, you’re drunk. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t, Mother dear? Do you want me to tell you?”
“I want you to be sweet. I want you to be like you were.”
“Well, it’s too late. I didn’t want to drink the wine. But you, you nasty fat worm, you
made me. I’m your dear, sweet daughter—don’t you remember? Well, I remember how
surprised you were that I had regulars. Do you think I’ll give them up? Do you think they
give me a mean little dollar in quarters? No, they give me ten dollars, and the price is
going up all the time. They can’t go to anybody else. Nobody else is any good for them.”
Faye wept like a child. “Kate,” she said, “don’t talk like that. You’re not like that.
You’re not like that.”

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“Dear Mother, sweet fat Mother, take down the pants of one of my regulars. Look at
the heelmarks on the groin—very pretty. And the little cuts that bleed for a long time. Oh,
Mother dear, I’ve got the sweetest set of razors all in a case—and so sharp, so sharp.”

Faye struggled to get out of her chair. Kate pushed her back. “And do you know,
Mother dear, that’s the way this whole house is going to be. The price will be twenty
dollars, and we’ll make the bastards take a bath. We’ll catch the blood on white silk
handkerchiefs—Mother dear—blood from the little knotted whips.”

In her chair Faye began to scream hoarsely. Kate was on her instantly with a hard hand
cupped over her mouth. “Don’t make a noise. There’s a good darling. Get snot all over
your daughter’s hand—but no noise.” Tentatively she took her hand away and wiped it
on Faye’s skirt.

Faye whispered, “I want you out of the house. I want you out. I run a good house
without nastiness. I want you out.”

“I can’t go, Mother. I can’t leave you alone, poor dear.” Her voice chilled. “Now I’m
sick of you. Sick of you.” She took a wineglass from the table, went to the bureau, and
poured paregoric until the glass was half full. “Here, Mother, drink it. It will be good for
you.”

“I don’t want to.”
“There’s a good dear. Drink it.” She coaxed the fluid into Faye. “Now one more
swallow—just one more.”
Faye mumbled thickly for a while and then she relaxed in her chair and slept, snoring
thickly.

3

Dread began to gather in the corners of Kate’s mind, and out of dread came panic. She
remembered the other time and a nausea swept through her. She gripped her hands
together, and the panic grew. She lighted a candle from the lamp and went unsteadily
down the dark hall to the kitchen. She poured dry mustard in a glass, stirred water into it
until it was partly fluid, and drank it. She held on to the edge of the sink while the paste
went burning down. She retched and strained again and again. At the end of it, her heart
was pounding and she was weak—but the wine was overcome and her mind was clear.

She went over the evening in her mind, moving from scene to scene like a sniffing
animal. She bathed her face and washed out the sink and put the mustard back on the
shelf. Then she went back to Faye’s room.

The dawn was coming, lighting up the back of Frémont’s Peak so that it stood black
against the sky. Faye was still snoring in her chair. Kate watched her for a few moments
and then she fixed Faye’s bed. Kate dragged and strained and lifted the dead weight of
the sleeping woman. On the bed Kate undressed Faye and washed her face and put her
clothes away.

The day was coming fast. Kate sat beside the bed and watched the relaxed face, the
mouth open, lips blowing in and out.

Faye made a restless movement and her dry lips slobbered a few thick words and
sighed off to a snore again.

Kate’s eyes become alert. She opened the top bureau drawer and examined the bottles
which constituted the medicine chest of the house—paregoric, Pain Killer, Lydia
Pinkham, iron wine tonic, Hall’s Cream Salve, Epsom salts, castor oil, ammonia. She
carried the ammonia bottle to the bed, saturated a handkerchief, and, standing well away,

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