“How could she answer? Her jaw is broken.” Adam’s voice.

“If she’s right-handed she could spell out answers. Look here, Adam, if somebody tried to kill her I’d better catch him while I can. Just give me a pencil and let me talk to her.”

Adam said, “You heard the doctor say her skull was cracked. How do you know she can remember?”

“Well, you give me paper and pencil and we’ll see.”

“I don’t want you to bother her.”

“Adam, goddam it, it doesn’t matter what you want. I’m telling you I want a paper and pencil.”

Then the other young man’s voice. “What’s the matter with you? You make it sound like it was you who did it. Give him a pencil.”

She had her eyes closed when the three men came quietly into her room.

“She’s asleep,” Adam whispered.

She opened her eyes and looked at them.

The tall man came to the side of the bed. “I don’t want to bother you, Miss. I’m the sheriff. I know you can’t talk, but will you just write some things on this?”

She tried to nod and winced with pain. She blinked her eyes rapidly to indicate assent.

“That’s the girl,” said the sheriff. “You see? She wants to.” He put the tablet on the bed beside her and molded her fingers around the pencil. “There we are. Now. What is your name?”

The three men watched her face. Her mouth grew thin and her eyes squinted. She closed her eyes and the pencil began to move. “I don’t know,” it scrawled in huge letters.

“Here, now there’s a fresh sheet. What do you remember?”

“All black. Can’t think,” the pencil wrote before it went over the edge of the tablet.

“Don’t you remember who you are, where you came from? Think!”

She seemed to go through a great struggle and then her face gave up and became tragic. “No. Mixed up. Help me.”

“Poor child,” the sheriff said. “I thank you for trying anyway. When you get better we’ll try again. No, you don’t have to write any more.”

The pencil wrote, “Thank you,” and fell from her fingers.

She had won the sheriff. He ranged himself with Adam. Only Charles was against her. When the brothers were in her room, and it took two of them to help her on the bedpan without hurting her, she studied Charles’ dark sullenness. He had something in his face that she recognized, that made her uneasy. She saw that he touched the scar on his forehead very often, rubbed it, and drew its outline with his fingers. Once he caught her watching. He looked guiltily at his fingers. Charles said brutally, “Don’t you worry. You’re going to have one like it, maybe even a better one.”

She smiled at him, and he looked away. When Adam came in with her warm soup Charles said, “I’m going in town and drink some beer.”

3

Adam couldn’t remember ever having been so happy. It didn’t bother him that he did not know her name. She had said to call her Cathy, and that was enough for him. He cooked for Cathy, going through recipes used by his mother and his stepmother.

Cathy’s vitality was great. She began to recover very quickly. The swelling went out of her cheeks and the prettiness of convalescence came to her face. In a short time she could be helped to a sitting position. She opened and closed her mouth very carefully, and she began to eat soft foods that required little chewing. The bandage was still on her forehead but the rest of her face was little marked except for the hollow cheek on the side where the teeth were missing.

Cathy was in trouble and her mind ranged for a way out of it. She spoke little even when it was not so difficult.

One afternoon she heard someone moving around in the kitchen. She called, “Adam, is it you?”

Charles’ voice answered, “No, it’s me.”

“Would you come in here just a minute, please?”

He stood in the doorway. His eyes were sullen.

“You don’t come in much,” she said.

“That’s right.”

“You don’t like me.”

“I guess that’s right too.”

“Will you tell me why?”

He struggled to find an answer. “I don’t trust you.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. And I don’t believe you lost your memory.”

“But why should I lie?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I don’t trust you. There’s something—I almost recognize.”

“You never saw me in your life.”

“Maybe not. But there’s something that bothers me—that I ought to know. And how do you know I never saw you?”

She was silent, and he moved to leave. “Don’t go,” she said. “What do you intend to do?”

“About what?”

“About me.”

He regarded her with a new interest. “You want the truth?”

“Why else would I ask?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll tell you. I’m going to get you out of here just as soon as I can. My brother’s turned fool, but I’ll bring him around if I have to lick him.”

“Could you do that? He’s a big man.”

“I could do it.”

She regarded him levelly. “Where is Adam?”

“Gone in town to get some more of your goddam medicine.”