He asked, "Are you too tired to tell me everything? Tonight? Now?"
Ruth shook her head. "I want to tell you."
For another hour she talked while Nim listened, occasionally interjecting questions.
About eight months ago, he learned, Ruth became aware of a small lump on the left side of her neck. Dr. Mittelman had retired from practice the year before. She went to Dr. Levin.
The doctor was suspicious of the lump and ordered a series of tests, including chest X-ray, liver scan, and bone scan. The extensive tests explained Ruth's daytime disappearances which Nim had noticed. Results showed that melanoma cells, after lying dormant for six years, had suddenly spread throughout Ruth's body.
“The day I heard," she said, "I didn't know what to do or think."
"Whatever else was wrong between us," Nim protested, "you should have told me."
"You seemed to have so much else on your mind. It was about the time that Walter was killed in that explosion at La Mission. Anyway, I decided to keep it to myself. Afterward, I took care of the insurance forms, all the rest."
"Your parents don't know?"
"No."
After the test results, Ruth explained, she had begun attending a local hospital once a week, as an outpatient, for chemotherapy and immunotherapy treatments. That, too, explained more daytime absences.
She suffered occasional nausea and some weight loss because of the treatments, but managed to conceal both. Nim's repeated absences from home had made it easier.
Nim put his head in his hands, his shame deepening. He had assumed Ruth was meeting another man, while all of the time . . .
Later, Ruth went on, Dr. Levin informed her of a new treatment being used at the Sloan-Kettering Institute in New York. He believed she should go there to learn about it. Ruth went-for a two-week stay and another battery of tests.
That was the time of her prolonged absence from home which Nim had thought of with indifference, or as an inconvenience to himself.
He was bereft of words.
"What's done is done," Ruth told him. "You couldn't possibly have known."
Nim asked the question be had been dreading. "What do they say about the future-the prognosis?"
"First of all, there is no cure; second, it's too late for surgery."
Ruth's voice was steady; most of her normal poise was back. "But I could have a lot of years left, though we'll never know until they run out.
Also I don't know about the Sloan-Kettering Institute yet-whether I'll be better off taking their treatment or not. The doctors there are working on a method which uses microwaves to raise the temperature of a tumor, followed by radiation which may-or may not-destroy the tumor tissue." She smiled wanly. "As you might imagine, I've found out as much about it as I can."
"I'd like to talk to Dr. Levin myself-tomorrow," Nim said, then corrected himself. "That is, later today. Do you mind?"
"Mind?" Ruth sighed. "No, I don't mind. It's so wonderful to have someone to lean on. Oh, Nim, I've needed you so much!"
He held her again. Soon afterward, he turned out the lights and led the way upstairs.
For the first time in many months Nim and Ruth shared a bed and, in the early morning as dawn was breaking, they made love.
12
A knife blade flashed. Blood spurted. Watching the procedure of castration, Nim felt slightly sick.
Beside him, Mr. Justice Yale chuckled, "Be thankful you were destined to be a man, not a steer."
The two were on a narrow catwalk above an animal pen, part of a cattle feedlot in California's agricultural heartland-the San Joaquin Valley.
The feedlot was one of the properties of the Yale Family Trust.
“The thought of any male being cut off from sex depresses me," Nim said.
He had flown here early this morning, his purpose to brief Paul Yale on electric power as it related to agriculture. California farmers were enormous users of electricity; agriculture and associated industry consumed a tenth of everything GSP & L generated. Without electricity, farming-indispensable to the state's well-being-would wither.
Later today the ex-Supreme Court justice would appear as GSP & L's spokesman at a regional hearing on the utility's plans for Tunipah. It was one of an Energy Commission series-some called it a traveling road show at which local leaders and citizens were invited to testify about power needs in their areas. The San Joaquin Valley farmers, who saw their livelihood threatened by power shortages, were already among Tunipah's staunch advocates.
Inevitably, there would be opposition too.
Still watching the activity below them, Yale told Nim, "I know what you mean about eliminating manhood-even in animals. In a way it's a pity; it's also necessary. When you're a farmer you don't even think about those things."
"Are you enjoying being one?"
"A part-time farmer? I'm not sure." the old man frowned. "Mostly I've been looking at balance sheets, trying to find out why this operation and others in that family trust of ours won't show a profit."
"What's happening right now," Nim said, "seems to be efficient."
"Efficient but damned costly."
They were observing the "check in" process in which calves, born on a grazing range and raised for six months there, were brought to the feedlot to be fattened for market.
Five cowboys-middle-aged men garbed in denims-kept the operation moving.
It began with herding a half-dozen calves into a circular pen. Inside, the animals were prodded, by electric cattle prods, into a narrow cement corridor, the walls extending above their heads but open at the top. A grubicide solution, to kill grubs and insects, was poured generously over each animal.
The corridor led-with an awful inevitability, Nim thought-to a hydraulic squeeze. This was a metal cage. As each calf entered, the cage contracted so the creature was held tightly with its head protruding and body lifted from the ground. The frightened animal bellowed lustilywith good reason, as the next few minutes proved.
First procedure was the discharge into each ear of a syringe containing motor oil. It would remove ticks. Next a huge hypodermic was shoved into the bellowing mouth and a worming solution injected. After that, the sharp extremities of both horns were clipped off with a heavy shear, leaving the soft and bloody insides exposed. Simultaneously came a strong, sickening smell of burning hair and flesh as a red-hot electric branding iron was pressed into the creature's side.
Then, at the touch of a lever, and with a hiss of air, the cattle squeeze rotated ninety degrees onto its side. In what had been the bottom, a small "gate" was exposed, which a cowboy opened. Inserting an aerosol can containing disinfectant, the man sprayed the calf's genitals, then put the can down and picked up a knife. Reaching inside, he slit the scrotum, probed with fingers, then pulled out and cut the testicles, which he tossed into a container beside him. Another application of the aerosol spray on the now bleeding, gaping wound, and the operation was complete.
The steer, having been deprived of all desires other than to eat would fatten nicely.
The hydraulic squeeze was opened. Still bellowing, the animal ran out into a further holding pen.
From beginning to end it had taken less than four minutes.
"It's faster and simpler than it used to be," Yale told Nim. "In my grandfather's day, and even recently, the calves would have to be lassoed and roped up before the things you're watching could be done.
“Nowadays our cowboys rarely ride horses; some of them don't even know how."
Nim. asked, "Is the modem way cheaper?"
"It ought to be, but isn't. It's the inflated cost of everything that does us in-labor, materials, feed, electricity-especially electricity.